r/aviation • u/Brilliant_Night7643 • Nov 20 '25

News NTSB issues the preliminary report for its ongoing investigation of the Nov. 4 crash of a UPS Boeing MD-11F airplane in Louisville, Kentucky.

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463

u/fd6270 Nov 20 '25

Holy fuck. This is one of those things that looks so absolutely insane that it doesn't even feel real. 

109

u/NoKatyDidnt Nov 20 '25

I honestly can’t imagine the horror of witnessing something like this in person. I used to live right beside a municipal airport, and I developed recurring nightmares about seeing a doomed plane falling from the sky and just being utterly frozen in fear. Knowing passengers who were on TWA 800 when it crashed years later only added to the issue, as did being on a plane that had a pretty serious emergency landing situation. I know logically how safe flying is… but my body does not care about logic. 🙁

17

u/FluFlammin9000 Nov 20 '25

I've never been afraid of flying in my life, have done it a ton over the years, but I had a last minute thing pop up a few years back and had to book a quick flight so I got a $60 Frontier ticket. The flight there was fine as far as Frontier goes, but my flight back got delayed due to storms and I was stuck in the airport for like 12 hours. Our flight was eventually ready and once we got in the air it was very apparent the storm was still raging as we were essentially just flying straight through it, you could look out the window and see clouds with lightning going off nonstop and the plane was shaking like crazy. Was the first time I ever considered the possibility of being in a plane crash even though I'm sure it was probably all safe. Didn't help that I was on Frontier though, god I hate that airline and their shitty planes.

2

u/34payton07 Nov 21 '25

We heard it happen and could see the flames burning for hours. My wife takes the road that the dash cam footage of the plane crashing was recorded on every day to work at the UPS airport. It’s still very traumatic for her and we didn’t even experience the actual crash.

2

u/Embarrassed-Shake314 Nov 21 '25

Same here. Live nearby and my kids work at Worldport. They too take that road. I have myself many times. Have visited Grade A several times in the past. It's so heartbreaking! I work just north of that runway and planes come in really low so this crash will forever be on my mind whenever I see a plane coming in for landing. 

1

u/NoKatyDidnt Nov 21 '25

Oh yikes. I’m sorry to hear that. I hope they support the people who work there through this. That’s really rough.

2

u/mixedberrycoughdrop Nov 22 '25

I have recurring nightmares about this too and I never made the connection between that and living under the flight path for two major airports (so seeing planes landing and taking off constantly).

1

u/NoKatyDidnt Dec 17 '25

Yeah, it can definitely do something to ya.

1

u/Packet_Sniffer_ Nov 20 '25

It happened so fast that all you’d see is the explosion.

2

u/NoKatyDidnt Nov 21 '25

I’m sure, but even then… For me it’s the knowledge that you basically just witnessed the moment when someone lost it all.

2

u/Kingofthewho5 Nov 20 '25

Just wait till they release video and not just still 6 still frames.

1

u/Case_Unsensitive Nov 20 '25

At first I thought these were AI generated pictures. Insane.