Deadly Day In Louisville

Yesterday was a day that will be long remembered here in Louisville. Around 1715, a UPS MD-11 like the one pictured above taking off today, crashed just after takeoff into an industrial area just south of Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. The Honolulu bound, three engined cargo jet was carrying a full load of 38,000 gallons (or more than a quarter million pounds) of fuel when it went down, igniting a nearly mile long inferno.

My partner spotted the smoke from the crash on their commute home, when they alerted me I ran up the nearest hill to snap this shot with my phone. While I was figuring out what had happened, the phone was screaming something about 'shelter in place,' which was promptly ignored. Running up the hill, an acrid odor to the air quickly brought itself to my attention, by the time I reached the top and snapped this my eyes and throat were starting to burn and feel rather dry. Found out much later in the evening that one of the businesses the plane hit was a place that recycled used motor oil and antifreeze, which didn't do the air quality any favors.

While I was a little less than three miles from the crash site and just to the west of the airport, my brother was about a half mile further away on its eastern side and snapped this shortly after it happened. As I was gathering my gear and scanning Google Earth for possible places to post up and shoot, more of those pesky 'shelter in place' alerts kept coming in as they expanded the area it covered. What started as a five mile radius eventually covered most of the city and stretched into Indiana. The local news stations were even picking the smoke up on their weather radar.

They say discretion is the better part of valor, and between all the alerts, the lingering effects of my run-in with the smoke, and the live feed from the news helicopter showing that there was no chance of getting close enough to get photos, I decided sheltering in place might not be the worst thing I ever did. We were eventually told to shut off any heating or air conditioning that might be running, which seemed a bit ominous.

Ultimately it would take a hundred firefighters (with some units coming from as far away as Lexington, an hour down the road) six hours to put out the blaze sparked by the crash. The shelter in place order for my neck of the woods was lifted shortly before it was extinguished around 2300. Spent all afternoon today driving and wandering around trying to get some shots of the aftermath, but the closest I could manage to get was these from the north side of the airport (the plane crashed just south of SDF).

From what the National Transportation Safety Board has said and the videos I've seen, the plane's left wing and engine were on fire as it was taking off, with the engine falling off as it was getting airborne. One wing hit the roof of a UPS building just past the end of the runway, and video shows the flaming forward fuselage with one wing still attached careening through a lot south of that building, leaving a trail of flames in its wake.

Currently 12 people are reported dead, with 15 injured and 16 people still missing. Did spot the FBI and NTSB out walking the airport, so hopefully we'll know more soon. Will post updates when there's more to see or say, until then, keep Louisville in your thoughts and please send us some fresh air.