Young little one dies as 11 killed in ‘apocalyptic’ aircraft crash ‘like one thing from The Terminator’

A young child is among 12 people feared dead after a UPS cargo plane exploded in a huge fireball as it crashed during take-off, it emerged tonight. Three crew members were on the Honolulu-bound jet from Louisville International Airport on Tuesday.

In an update on Wednesday afternoon, the Kentucky governor Andy Beshear said 11 people had been confirmed dead, including a young child, and at least one more was feared dead.

He said: “Our fatality count is now up to 11, expected to reach 12, possibly by the end of the day, and there are a handful of other people that we’re still searching for, that we hope weren’t on site and that we hope were somewhere else.”

A massive emergency service response was scrambled on Tuesday to multiple blazes burning at the edge of the airport, which is the worldwide air hub for UPS. Video showed the MD-11F cargo plane struggle to gain altitude as fire consumed an engine on its left wing.

The aircraft, filled with an estimated 38,000 gallons of jet fuel, crashed into an industrial area shortly after take-off, exploding in a massive fireball and leaving half a mile of debris. Horror photos show the trail of devastation left in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Kentucky Representative Morgan McGarvey likened the crash site to a scene from a “Terminator” movie during a press conference on Wednesday. He said: “It is burned and mangled wreckage beyond anything I’ve ever seen.

“The smells, the sights, these are things that are not going to escape us when we close our eyes tonight.”

Search and rescue missions continued on Wednesday and Beshear declared a state of emergency earlier on Wednesday. But he added: “We are moving from a rescue to a recovery mode. We do not expect to find anyone else alive in the area.”

The MD-11 plane was 34 years old and in need of a permanent repair to fix a crack in the fuel tank before it returned to service, maintenance records with the Federal Aviation Administration show.

The plane narrowly missed a restaurant. Beshear said that he was thankful that a nearby Ford assembly plant where hundreds of people were working, and a local convention centre, were spared.

Mark Little, the Okolona fire district chief, said at a press conference on Wednesday: “I don’t know how many victims we’re actually looking for. That’s one of the issues.

“And the debris zone is so large … some of that debris is going to have to be moved and searched underneath, so it will take us quite a while.”

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