LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A repeating bell sounded in the cockpit for 25 seconds as pilots tried to control a UPS cargo plane that caught fire, had an engine fall off and crashed during takeoff this week in Louisville, Kentucky, a National Transportation Safety Board member said Friday.
The cockpit voice recorder captured a persistent bell that began about 37 seconds after the crew called for takeoff thrust, and the bell continued until the recording ended, which investigators believe was the final point of impact, NTSB member Todd Inman said.
Inman said there could be different types of alarms with varying meanings, but investigators know there was a fire in the plane’s left wing and will use flight data to help determine a clearer picture of what happened.
The crash Tuesday at UPS Worldport, the company’s global aviation hub in Louisville, killed 13 people, including the three pilots on board. The NTSB is leading the investigation.
Inman said it would be months before a transcript of the cockpit recording is made public as part of that investigation process.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said the bell likely was signaling the engine fire.
“It occurred at a point in the takeoff where they were likely past their decision speed to abort the takeoff,” Guzzetti told The Associated Press after Inman’s news conference Friday. “They were likely past their critical decision speed to remain on the runway and stop safely. … They’ll need to thoroughly investigate the options the crew may or may not have had.”
Investigators look to video for clues
Dramatic video captured the aircraft crashing into businesses and erupting in a fireball. Footage from phones, cars and security cameras has given investigators visual evidence of what happened from many different angles.
The NTSB clarified Friday that preliminary data on the aircraft’s altitude indicated it got about 100 feet above ground level, not 475 feet. It reached a speed of 210 mph (340 kph) before crashing just outside the Louisville airport, Inman said.
The engine’s main component and pieces of engine fan blades were recovered from the airfield. Inman said UPS indicated no maintenance work was performed before the flight “that would delay it in any way.” He noted that investigators will look at video to see what, if anything, was being done around the MD-11 aircraft in preceding days.
The UPS package handling facility in Louisville is the company’s largest. The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300 flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
UPS Worldport operations resumed Wednesday night with its Next Day Air, or night sort, operation, spokesperson Jim Mayer said.
Lawsuit alleges negligence by UPS and others
Litigation over the crash has already begun. A federal lawsuit was filed Thursday against UPS by an automotive repair shop destroyed in the crash and a resident treated at a hospital after breathing in smoke.
The manufacturer of the plane and its engine also were named in the lawsuit, which alleges the defendants “negligently breached their duty of reasonable care and preventing unreasonable harm.” It seeks unspecified damages.
The companies named as defendants didn’t immediately return emails seeking comment Friday. ___
Mattise reported from Nashville. AP reporter Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
