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The happy hour regulars were already gathering at Stooges Bar & Grill less than two hours before tip-off at Tuesday night’s University of Kentucky men’s basketball season opener. About 30 or so customers occupied the wooden stools of the old-school, salty hangout in an industrial strip a few miles from downtown Louisville. Only the University of Louisville Cardinals draw a larger pregame crowd. Surrounded by big-screen TVs and signs for the domestic beer buckets and other specials, the no-frills, family-owned watering hole near Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport is popular among workers from the nearby United Parcel Service package handling facility and the Ford SUV assembly plant. For the Kentucky opener, Stooges was offering 59-cent shrimp all day. “I had just ordered my first beer and the lights went out,” Stooges regular Bryson Beck recalled. Kyla Kenady, working that afternoon, handed him a beer, turned around and looked outside to see “a plane in flames going down.” The first report of the “catastrophic” crash of a UPS MD-11 plane was at about 5:15 p.m. ET on Tuesday, according to state officials. The disaster killed at least 14 people and destroyed nearby businesses and buildings. “This plane barely missed a restaurant/bar,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told CNN. “It was very close to a very large Ford plant with hundreds, if not a thousand-plus workers.” The randomness of the disaster has left locals in a state of shock. Debbie Self, who, along with her late husband Rodger, opened Stooges more than 40 years ago, said firefighters told her the plane came down roughly 100 yards from her business. “It was close. They said, ‘We don’t know how you made it,’” said Self, who was having dinner elsewhere at the time of the crash. The UPS cargo plane came down after an engine detached during takeoff, officials said. It had reached an altitude of 475 feet and a speed of 210 mph when it plunged to the ground, according to crash investigators. In addition to three UPS crew members identified from the plane, nine members of the community have been reported missing, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said. They were believed to be in the area at the time. The crash left a fiery trail of destruction and a half-mile-long debris field, devastating multiple small businesses, such as Grade A Auto Parts, where mangled, blackened remnants of buildings were set in the background of what a Kentucky official described as an “apocalyptic” ashy sky with an acrid smell in the air. As flames raged and doors melted shut, people jumped from windows and ran, some employees helping shield others from the growing inferno at the recycling plant, according to its owner. Video from the scene showed a mountainous plume of charcoal-colored smoke emanating from buildings that were set ablaze. In another video at the facility, a man yelled, “Did everybody make it out?” When another person responded, “No,” he screamed, “What do you mean no?” “I thought it was the end of the world,” Robert Sanders, a 50-year-old employee at the plant told CNN. He lived in a RV trailer on the site of the facility and believes it was destroyed along with all his personal belongings. Footage of the crash showed a towering wave of smoke and flames billowing skyward near the airport after the low-flying plane struggled to climb and then erupted into an enormous fireball on impact. Stooges’ parking lot is now a temporary morgue, owner says At Stooges, Kenady went into “fight or flight” response. The burning plane appeared to fly right over the volleyball courts in the parking lot. “I turned around, ran down the bar and screamed to everyone that a plane was crashing, grabbed my things, grabbed my phone, my purse, ran out the door as everyone, in panic, ran out at the same time,” she said. She got into her car and, across the street, felt the ground shaking and what she said was a terrifying rush of heated air. It was a horrific scenario Kenady said had crossed her mind before. The roar of the planes on takeoff is so loud that people normally have to pause their conversations in the bar. “We think that something like that would happen but you don’t ever think it would happen to you,” she said of the disaster. Beck, the bar customer, did not get past his first beer. The lights went out, then he heard “the biggest boom.” The building shook. “I’ve been in earthquakes in California before and it didn’t hold a candle to how this place shook,” he said. “Everybody started freaking out and then there’s more booms.” Beck ran outside. A thick cloud of black smoke enveloped the afternoon sky. “I thought that maybe a country was bombing us,” he said. He ran into a friend, who wanted to rush to the crash scene to help. “We’re not firefighters. We’re not first responders. We don’t have gear,” Beck told his friend. “We have to leave.” If the plane had gone down a few hundred feet from where it crashed, Beck said, “I would not be talking to you right now.” Stooges has been in operation since 1984, according to an obituary for Self’s husband, who co-founded the business with her. “Please join us in praying for the victims, their families, and all of the brave first responders,” Self wrote on the bar’s Facebook page. “I do believe Rodger shielded that place and all inside, wrapping his angel wings around it,” a local commented on Facebook, referring to Stooges and Self’s late husband. Another Louisville bar has offered temporary jobs to Stooges employees who are now out of work, according to Self, who has also started a fundraising campaign for her more than 40 employees. “We were very fortunate. Others were not so fortunate,” Self said. At the time of the crash, Self said she was having dinner about three miles away from Stooges. She got a call from a worker and rushed to the bar but could not get close. “I thought it would be gone,” she said of Stooges. “I can’t believe it survived. From now on it will always be known as a place that was left intact in the middle of a war zone.” Stooges appears to be undamaged but Self said she is unsure when it will reopen. Its parking lot, usually a venue for wrestling matches and volleyball games, is now a temporary morgue.
