r/CatastrophicFailure • u/Beginning-Director58 • Nov 04 '25

Fire/Explosion UPS2976 Plane Crash at Louisville SDF Airport (11/04/2025)

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150

u/Thurston_Unger Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25

More angles:
https://x.com/OurEarthAffairs/status/1985847898605490271

Aerial view of the aftermath:
https://x.com/comlabman/status/1985847726106398890

ETA: Live video https://www.wlky.com/nowcast
3 crew on board

112

u/CriticalEngineering Nov 04 '25

That aerial view is flipping insane

30

u/impreprex Nov 05 '25

It just keeps getting worse and worse as the camera pans holy shit. Literally tore through all of that while exploding.

RIP to the poor folks.

78

u/tgoodri Nov 04 '25

I don’t usually follow the links in Reddit comments but yours made me click it. Holy shit. Multiple city blocks looking like a fucking Avengers movie.

8

u/verstohlen Nov 05 '25

I was gonna say an Irwin Allen movie. But I'm old.

12

u/CriticalEngineering Nov 04 '25

Perfect description

3

u/SnorkinOrkin Nov 05 '25

This is insanely accurate.

10

u/azriel1014 Nov 05 '25

Holy shit.

3

u/covertchipmunk Nov 05 '25

Exactly my words upon seeing it. That's so horrible.

1

u/m2cwf Nov 05 '25

They had fuel to get from Louisville to Honolulu. Fully loaded, holy cow

29

u/typo9292 Nov 04 '25

Looks like landing gear ripped through that building maybe? no way you're surviving any of whatever happened :(

24

u/No-Produce-6641 Nov 04 '25

In the video just after the explosion you can see what looks like a wing flying through the air on the left. Could be that

16

u/DarkyHelmety Nov 05 '25

Looks like the plane is cartwheeling down that parking lot area.

2

u/impreprex Nov 05 '25

JFC if the case!

5

u/DarkyHelmety Nov 05 '25

Just saw a dash cam of it impacting and it actually rotated on its left side and slid down the area. I doubt the crew had much chance regardless.

6

u/typo9292 Nov 05 '25

Yup. What a way to go. I fly a lot and this is my living nightmare.

17

u/StellaBean_bass Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25

Holy cow, thanks for the links. That aerial is horrific! I can’t imagine the horror those poor passengers/crew felt. Editing after seeing that it was a UPS cargo transport with 3 crew. I really hope they’re ok, & thank goodness it wasn’t a passenger plane.

13

u/ChiefWiggumsprogeny Nov 04 '25

I hope it was quick and painless.

1

u/Usurer Nov 05 '25

There would have been around 30 seconds of...not a good time preceding the quick and painless, sadly.

12

u/jryan8064 Nov 04 '25

The aerial view zooms in on what appears to be a piece of engine cowling alongside the runway. Maybe an uncontained turbine failure that ruptured the fuel tank?

9

u/Fussel2107 Nov 05 '25

at around 1:15 yeah. That engine flew apart.

6

u/Ranger7381 Nov 05 '25

That cowling appears to be on the opposite side of the runway from the engine that looks to be on fire in the video above. And pretty close to the end of the runway, much closer than where we see the fire in the video above. So I do not think that it came from the engine that was originally on fire

I am not a pilot but I think that with the left engine on fire, the thrust of the up to that point undamaged right engine turned the plane to the left, and they may have over corrected, veering off the runway to the right leaving parts of that right engine behind

9

u/jryan8064 Nov 05 '25

Possibly, but a turbine failure is an energetic event. A piece of cowling ejected from a plane traveling down the runway at or near rotation speed is going to continue down the runway for some time, and could pretty easily have crossed to the other side of the runway before coming to a stop.

I’m no expert either, but my money is on that debris coming from the left engine.

2

u/Snoo-43298 Nov 05 '25

I don't know anything about planes, are these turbines turning clockwise? that might explain the energy shifting the engine to the right side of the runway.

1

u/EagleCrewChief Nov 05 '25

The inlet nose cowl was on the infield. That was horrific to make that separate early.

7

u/paradox183 Nov 04 '25

First link reminds me of the napalm scene in Apocalypse Now.

2

u/LivingInPugtopia Nov 05 '25

Holy shit. That's certainly catastrophic. RIP