New images show the moment an engine fell off a UPS plane before it crashed, killing 14 people in Kentucky.
Federal investigators released the dramatic photos while revealing that they found evidence of cracks in the left wing’s engine mount.
Additional footage of the crash helped the National Transportation Safety Board determine that the plane’s left engine detached from the aircraft during takeoff.
The plane slammed into the ground, tearing a hole through the roof of a UPS warehouse before exploding in a fireball at the airport.
Three flight crew members, a local business owner, and a grandfather and his granddaughter who were âin the wrong place, at the wrong timeâ were among the dead following the November 4 crash, the deadliest in the companyâs history.
The MD-11 plane only got 30 feet (9.1 meters) off the ground, the National Transportation Safety Board said, citing the flight data recorder in its first formal but preliminary report about the Nov. 4 disaster in Louisville, Kentucky.
Three pilots on the plane were killed along with 11 more people on the ground near Muhammad Ali International Airport.
The NTSB said the plane was not due yet for a detailed inspection of key engine mount parts that had fractures. It still needed to complete nearly 7,000 more takeoffs and landings. It was last examined in October 2021.
âIt appears UPS was conducting this maintenance within the required time frame, but Iâm sure the FAA is now going to ponder whether that time frame is adequate,â aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told The Associated Press after reading the report.
New pictures released by the NTSB show the left engine coming off the UPS plane and flying up and over the wing as it rolled down the runway.
