Not a good night at Louisville Airport tonight!

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ChicagoBlue

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www.wdrb.com

UPS plane catches fire and explodes while taking off from Louisville's airport

WDRB has crews headed to the scene.
www.wdrb.com www.wdrb.com

UPS MD-11 cargo plane has exploded on the runway after attempting a takeoff this evening.

Looks unsurvivable for the 3 pilots onboard.

Too early to tell but… it looks like engine blew up on takeoff. Captain rejected and ended up at the far end of the airfield. Uncontained engine fire spread to the wing. Lots of fuel for a big explosion. BOOM!

UGH.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
www.wdrb.com

UPS plane catches fire and explodes while taking off from Louisville's airport

WDRB has crews headed to the scene.
www.wdrb.com www.wdrb.com

UPS MD-11 cargo plane has exploded on the runway after attempting a takeoff this evening.

Looks unsurvivable for the 3 pilots onboard.

Too early to tell but… it looks like engine blew up on takeoff. Captain rejected and ended up at the far end of the airfield. Uncontained engine fire spread to the wing. Lots of fuel for a big explosion. BOOM!

UGH.
Click to expand...
What do you mean by "Captain rejected"?
I'm guessing that any small explosion/engine issue on take off can be catastrophic simply due to the plane being fully fuelled?
I wonder if similar to the Concorde explosion?
 
LGWIO said:
What do you mean by "Captain rejected"?
I'm guessing that any small explosion/engine issue on take off can be catastrophic simply due to the plane being fully fuelled?
I wonder if similar to the Concorde explosion?
Click to expand...
'Rejected' as in rejected to take off.

Sounds like a shit situation. Terrible tragedy.
 
LGWIO said:
What do you mean by "Captain rejected"?
I'm guessing that any small explosion/engine issue on take off can be catastrophic simply due to the plane being fully fuelled?
I wonder if similar to the Concorde explosion?
Click to expand...
My apologies. I meant “rejected the takeoff.”

This is done for numerous reasons, but they boil down to “Failure, Fire, ‘Fraid to fly!”

The failure in this case would be an engine, the fire in this case would be the engine, and the ‘fraid to fly would be not having the thrust needed to take-off safely.

That said, there is a point after which you do not have the runway needed to stop and even with an engine fire you need to takeoff, try to extinguish it airborne and come back to land with one engine powered…and we train it incessantly.

In this instance, it looks like the failure/fire must have started BEFORE that go/no go decision was required, so the Captain rejected the takeoff and appears to have stopped “safely.”

However, from there, it appears it must have been an uncontained fire (meaning not just inside the engine, where there are multiple fire extinguishers to put it out) and spread to the fuel tanks inside the wings.

Nightmare.

EDIT

IMG_4902.png

This pic was just shared with me. That’s a burned up engine sitting alongside a runway. I’m trying to confirm it’s from tonight, but that’s not something you see every day and there’s a UPS jet in the background…

???
 
Last edited:
ChicagoBlue said:
My apologies. I meant “rejected the takeoff.”

This is done for numerous reasons, but they boil down to “Failure, Fire, ‘Fraid to fly!”

The failure in this case would be an engine, the fire in this case would be the engine, and the ‘fraid to fly would be not having the thrust needed to take-off safely.

That said, there is a point after which you do not have the runway needed to stop and even with an engine fire you need to takeoff, try to extinguish it airborne and come back to land with one engine powered…and we train it incessantly.

In this instance, it looks like the failure/fire must have started BEFORE that go/no go decision was required, so the Captain rejected the takeoff and appears to have stopped “safely.”

However, from there, it appears it must have been an uncontained fire (meaning not just inside the engine, where there are multiple fire extinguishers to put it out) and spread to the fuel tanks inside the wings.

Nightmare.

EDIT

View attachment 173954

This pic was just shared with me. That’s a burned up engine sitting alongside a runway. I’m trying to confirm it’s from tonight, but that’s not something you see every day and there’s a UPS jet in the background…

???
Click to expand...

For an aircraft to spit an engine like that either means there was a mechanical issue with the engine mounts that ultimately led to the initial fire, or the initial fire caused the wing to break up prior to any explosion.

I feel sorry for anyone involved.
 
Well, this is why you shouldn’t jump to conclusions!!!

The initial video was from a vehicle at the airport, which is why I thought the aircraft was still inside the boundary at the far end of the airport. Not so!

The aircraft apparently became airborne and crashed outside the airport boundary, into an industrial park.



So, they did not reject the takeoff, but took off and crashed shortly thereafter into working businesses, which is even worse.

Latest update:

UPS Airlines Flight 2976 was a cargo flight from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii.

On November 4, 2025, shortly after takeoff from runway 17R at around 5:13 PM EST, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 operating the flight crashed in the Knopp neighborhood, just south of the airport.

The plane reached a maximum altitude of about 175 feet (53 m) AGL and a ground speed of 186 knots at the time of the accident.

Reports and footage indicate that the left engine caught fire during the takeoff roll and may have exploded after becoming airborne, which likely caused the crash.

The aircraft impacted near a semi-truck parking area and slid forward, leading to a large fire and damage to nearby buildings.

The flight path was very short—basically lift-off from runway 17R and impact very close to the airport due to the accident shortly after takeoff. The crash site is near the airport in Louisville, Kentucky. The accident is under investigation by the FAA and NTSB.

IMG_2530.jpeg
 
Last edited:
ChicagoBlue said:
Well, this is why you shouldn’t jump to conclusions!!!

The initial video was from a vehicle at the airport, which is why I thought the aircraft was still inside the boundary at the far end of the airport. Not so!

The aircraft apparently became airborne and crashed outside the airport boundary, into an industrial park.



So, they did not reject the takeoff, but took off and crashed shortly thereafter into working businesses, which is even worse.

Latest update:

UPS Airlines Flight 2976 was a cargo flight from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii.

On November 4, 2025, shortly after takeoff from runway 17R at around 5:13 PM EST, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 operating the flight crashed in the Knopp neighborhood, just south of the airport.

The plane reached a maximum altitude of about 175 feet (53 m) AGL and a ground speed of 186 knots at the time of the accident.

Reports and footage indicate that the left engine caught fire during the takeoff roll and may have exploded after becoming airborne, which likely caused the crash.

The aircraft impacted near a semi-truck parking area and slid forward, leading to a large fire and damage to nearby buildings.

The flight path was very short—basically lift-off from runway 17R and impact very close to the airport due to the accident shortly after takeoff. The crash site is near the airport in Louisville, Kentucky. The accident is under investigation by the FAA and NTSB.

View attachment 173961
Click to expand...


How much would the age of the aircraft contribute to what has happened here? The Md11 that crashed was over 34 years old, the inspection and maintenance to keep it in the air must be a lot more intensive than a newer airframe specially with the increased weight with it being a cargo plane.

An extremely tragic incident and thoughts are with everyone involved.
 
feedmpenzaandhewillscore said:
How much would the age of the aircraft contribute to what has happened here? The Md11 that crashed was over 34 years old, the inspection and maintenance to keep it in the air must be a lot more intensive than a newer airframe specially with the increased weight with it being a cargo plane.

An extremely tragic incident and thoughts are with everyone involved.
Click to expand...
As aircraft age, their inspection cycle gets shorter and shorter and more and more parts reach the end of their useful life.

It could just as easily have been a new part as an old one, but metal fatigue is insidious, in that it can be very, very difficult to detect.

Additionally, with the stresses developed inside a turbine engine generating maximum thrust at takeoff, any and all weaknesses are at their most vulnerable.

It’s hard to know if they knew how serious it was when it first happened, but they soon found out.

The worst part of being anyone doing anything is the knowledge that no matter what you do next, you are about to die. Those pilots definitely spent their last seconds in that living Hell.
 
Awful, and I mean awful, there has always been a bit of un easiness with me with this plane, seen a lot of stories over the years, as well as crashes involving MD11's, a proper av geek once told me that they are not the easiest of machines to fly
 
LGWIO said:
What do you mean by "Captain rejected"?
I'm guessing that any small explosion/engine issue on take off can be catastrophic simply due to the plane being fully fuelled?
I wonder if similar to the Concorde explosion?
Click to expand...
Nothing like the Concorde crash. That was caused by FOD on the runway being run over and launched into the wing breaching a fuel tank. The leaking fuel caught fire.
 
Poor guys were practically front row passengers once the engine left the aircraft.

A alot of speculation that the aircraft had been delayed two hours due to maintenance on the engine in question, I guess salt required until proven.

The aircraft had been in maintenance between 3rd Sep & 18 Oct though.
 
meeesh said:
Awful, and I mean awful, there has always been a bit of un easiness with me with this plane, seen a lot of stories over the years, as well as crashes involving MD11's, a proper av geek once told me that they are not the easiest of machines to fly
Click to expand...
Since the DC-10 became the MD-11 there are “known” issues with elevator blanking and porpoising of the aircraft, especially at low altitudes where you raise the nose and the airflow over the tail is disturbed.

There is an (in)famous crash on landing at Newark years ago.
 
Claytop said:
Poor guys were practically front row passengers once the engine left the aircraft.

A alot of speculation that the aircraft had been delayed two hours due to maintenance on the engine in question, I guess salt required until proven.

The aircraft had been in maintenance between 3rd Sep & 18 Oct though.
Click to expand...
I hate to say it out loud, because I heard this last night secondhand from a pilot at UPS, but it was reported as a fuel leak.

:-(
 
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