Nine people remain missing in the UPS plane crash and explosion in Louisville that killed at least 12 others, local leaders said Thursday.
“Our hope is that we have located all of the victims at this point. But again, we do not know,” Mayor Craig Greenberg said at a press conference. “You hear people say, ‘Oh, you only see that in the movies.’ This was worse than the movies.”
The recovery effort continued and expanded on Thursday, with crews combing through the massive piles of metal and debris stretching half a mile from the explosion site.
The local coroner’s office is working to identify the deceased victims, including the three people onboard the plane when it blew up. Because the exploding aircraft impacted such a large area, the recovery effort is expected to last several days.
“There’s so much charred, mangled metal, that not all the bodies may have been located until you look underneath certain things,” Greenberg said. “Everything to date has been just looking at what can be seen without moving debris.”
UPS Flight 2976 was attempting to depart UPS Worldport, the company’s global shipping hub in Louisville, just after 5 p.m. Tuesday when the plane’s left engine fell off and the aircraft exploded in a giant fireball.
The flaming, out-of-control plane cleared a fence at the end of the runway, then careened through several businesses and lots near Louisville’s airport.
Prior to Tuesday’s disaster, the aircraft underwent maintenance to repair a crack in its fuel tank, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 was loaded with 38,000 gallons of fuel for its scheduled flight to Honolulu.
With News Wire Services
