Copyright Arkansas Online
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Two days after a deadly UPS plane disaster, a candlelight vigil was held Thursday to remember the victims and thank first responders, while teams still worked to find or identify people caught in the crash and subsequent firestorm. "Our hope is that we have located all of the victims at this point. But again, we do not know," Mayor Craig Greenberg said earlier in the day. The inferno destroyed the enormous plane and spread to nearby businesses, killing at least 13 people, including a child and three UPS crew members on the cargo hauler. No one expects to find survivors in the crash at UPS Worldport, the company's global aviation hub. The plane had been cleared for takeoff Tuesday when a large fire developed in the left wing and an engine fell off, said Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation. Meanwhile, UPS Worldport operations resumed Wednesday night with its Next Day Air, or night sort, operation, spokesperson Jim Mayer said. "Our goal is to begin returning the network to a normal cadence," Mayer said. Teamsters Local 89, which represents UPS workers, hosted a candlelight vigil, which began with a moment of silence at 5:14 p.m., the approximate time of the crash two days earlier. "This incident was so sudden, so unexpected," the mayor told the crowd of 200. "No one had a chance to say goodbye to any of those who we have lost." Greenberg disclosed that the death toll had risen to 13. UPS, meanwhile, released the names of three people who died on the plane: Capt. Richard Wartenberg, First Officer Lee Truitt and International Relief Officer Capt. Dana Diamond, all members of the Independent Pilots Association. Bob Travis, a UPS pilot and the union's president, expressed gratitude for the work of emergency responders, public officials and the community. "Everybody's seen the video," he said of the crash. "It's hard not to." Earlier Thursday, Greenberg described the crash site as "horrific," with "charred, mangled metal." Part of the plane's tail, he said, appeared to be sticking out of a storage silo. "You hear people say, 'Oh, you only see that in the movies.' This was worse than the movies," Greenberg told reporters. The plane's last data recordings showed it had reached an altitude of 475 feet and a speed of 210 mph before crashing just outside Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, Inman said Thursday. The engine's main component and pieces of engine fan blades were recovered from the airfield. Inman said UPS indicated that no maintenance work was performed before the flight "that would delay it in any way." He noted that investigators will look at video to see what, if anything, was being done around the MD-11 aircraft in preceding days. The UPS package handling facility in Louisville is the company's largest. The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300 flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour. The crash and explosion caused even more blasts and destruction at businesses in an industrial corridor just outside the airport. Sabit Aliyev, the owner of Kentucky Truck Parts and Service, still doesn't know if his business is standing. He said he was inside the shop Tuesday when the burning plane passed by, followed by an explosion. He went outside and recorded what sounded like another explosion. "It was like hell," Aliyev said. "There was fire all over. It was sky high." He and his workers fled over vacant land but were suddenly trapped by a high security fence until a police officer used bolt cutters to cut open a gate. Flight records show the UPS plane was on the ground in San Antonio from Sept. 3 to Oct. 18, but it was unclear what maintenance was performed. Information for this article was contributed by John Raby, Ed White, Travis Loller and Kathy McCormack of The Associated Press.
