UPS plane crash investigation will probe maintenance history, NTSB says

U.S. safety investigators said Thursday they are probing the maintenance history of a UPS cargo plane that was in Texas for repairs weeks before crashing in flames Tuesday in Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least 13 people.

The National Transportation Safety Board said a large “plume of fire” erupted around the 34-year-old MD-11 freighter’s left wing and one of its three engines detached from the wing as it rolled down a Louisville airport runway.

Flight tracking data shows the plane was on the ground in San Antonio, Texas, from Sept. 3 to Oct. 18.

“We are aware that this aircraft was there in San Antonio,” NTSB member Todd Inman told reporters Thursday. “We will look at every piece of maintenance that was done, even from the San Antonio time, all the way to the date of the flight.”

According to Federal Aviation Administration records dated Sept. 18, a crack on a structural piece inside the center wing fuel tank required repairs.

The NTSB said the download of the plane’s two “black boxes”, thecockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, was successful and a transcript of the cockpit conversation was being put together.

On Thursday evening, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said on X that the death toll had grown to 13.

Earlier in the day, he told reporters that investigators and others were still searching through the crash debris for clues and possible victims.