A 26-person National Transportation Safety Board team is in Birmingham, Alabama, to investigate the crash of a UPS plane that took off from Louisville. The Wednesday morning crash killed the pilot and co-pilot, who were the only two people aboard the plane.
NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the freighter struck trees on the way down and broke apart upon hitting the ground, with part of the plane catching fire.
The part of the plane containing the flight data recorder is still smoldering as first-responders continue to put flame retardant on it. Sumwalt says an NTSB representative is at UPS headquarters in Louisville looking into the plane’s maintenance records, something he says is routine during these types of investigations.