A UPS cargo plane crashed near Louisville on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people.The plane hit businesses and warehouses in an industrial area a few miles south of the airport.Satellite images show the destruction left behind.
The UPS cargo plane crash left a trail of destruction in an industrial area near Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport, new satellite images show.
At least 12 people, including many on the ground, were killed after the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 crashed shortly after takeoff on Tuesday. The black boxes, which hold cockpit voice and flight data, have since been recovered.
There were three crew members on board the plane, which was bound for Honolulu. Officials said the up to nine-hour journey meant the jet was carrying 220,000 pounds of fuel, or about 38,000 gallons.
The immense volume of fuel contributed to the massive fireball and smoke plume that erupted from the wrecked plane just three miles south of the airport.
See the satellite images of the crash site, provided by the commercial imagery provider Vantor, before and after the accident.
Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport shut down on Tuesday after the crash of UPS Flight 2976.
Officials say there are still at least nine people unaccounted for, as of Thursday afternoon.
Smoke covered the city for hours on Tuesday.
Image of smoke across the city after the UPS crash.
LEANDRO LOZADA/AFP via Getty Images
The city initially issued a shelter-in-place notice for a five-mile radius around the airport. That extended to anything north of the airport to the Ohio River as emergency responders worked to contain the fire.
The order has since been reduced to a small radius around the hazardous area of the crash site.
The cause of the crash is unknown, but the NTSB said the jet lost its left engine during takeoff.
Christian Junker/Getty Images
NTSB official J. Todd Inman said on Wednesday that CCTV footage shows "the left engine detaching from the wing during the takeoff roll." Takeoff roll is the runway distance from start to liftoff.
Mark Stephens, a former MD-11 pilot and instructor at Delta Air Lines, told Business Insider that it's rare, but the engine is designed to shear off an aircraft during intense vibration.
This prevents the engine from hitting the wing, fuselage, or other critical components. The MD-11 has three engines, including one below its vertical stabilizer. Stephens said the MD-11 can fly with just two engines.
