Video showed flames on the plane\u2019s left wing and a trail of smoke. The plane then lifted slightly off the ground before crashing and exploding in a huge fireball. Video also revealed portions of a building\u2019s shredded roof next to the end of the runway.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762327028_218_a-fireball-erupts-near-airport-property-after-reports-of-a-p-XGWX5Y7U4RH35EI5WJZNJDVEUI.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
A fireball erupts near airport property after reports of a plane crash at Louisville International Airport (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Among the 11 who were hurt, some had \u201cvery significant\u201d injuries, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnybody who has seen the images, the video, knows how violent this crash is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Beshear said he didn’t know the status of the three crew members aboard the plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 made in 1991.<\/p>\n
A shelter-in-place order was issued within eight kilometres of the airport. (Source: Reuters)<\/p>\n
UPS\u2019s largest package handling facility is in Louisville. The hub employs thousands of workers, has 300 daily flights and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know somebody who works at UPS,\u201d Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they\u2019re all texting their friends, their family, trying to make sure everyone is safe. Sadly, some of those texts are probably going to go unanswered. <\/p>\n
“My heart goes out to those families and those friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762327028_242_slide-1-of-1-previous-next-this-photo-provided-by-brad-harve-ZXEB44DG2ZCDFGTQ3JQP4HVKDU.png\")
<\/p>\n
This photo provided by Brad Harvey shows thick, black smoke rising after reports of a plane crash near Louisville International Airport (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
UPS acknowledged the crash in a brief statement and said the National Transportation Safety Board would handle the investigation.<\/p>\n
The airport, meanwhile, was shut down and wasn\u2019t expected to resume operations until Wednesday morning (Kentucky time).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s going to take to render that scene safe,\u201d said Louisville police chief Paul Humphrey.<\/p>\n
The governor said a business, Kentucky Petroleum Recycling, appeared to be \u201chit pretty directly,\u201d and a nearby auto parts operation was also affected.<\/p>\n
A video taken by Leirim Rodr\u00edguez shows several massive balls of flames exploding into the sky in a row, followed by large billowing clouds of black smoke. <\/p>\n
Rodriguez told the Associated Press she and her husband just happened to be in the area at the time of the explosion.<\/p>\n
Tom Brooks Jr, who runs a metal recycling business down the street, said the unbelievable magnitude of the crash \u201cjust rocked the whole place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was massive. I mean, it literally looked like a war zone,” he said.<\/p>\n
Destyn Mitchell said she was working as a host at an Outback restaurant, about a 15-minute drive from the crash, when she heard a loud boom. About 20 people were in the restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mood in the restaurant was very shaken up,\u201d Mitchell said. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is really concerned. People who just sat down to eat got up and left in under 30 minutes and packed up their food because they wanted to hurry up and get home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Louisville airport is only a 10-minute drive from the city\u2019s downtown, which sits on the Ohio River bordering the Indiana state line. <\/p>\n
There are residential areas, a water park and museums in the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A large UPS cargo plane has crashed and exploded in a massive fireball while taking off from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,64,40,38,41,39,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-118880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-north-america","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories","15":"tag-transport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}