(Birmingham, AL) Two people are now confirmed dead after a UPS cargo plane crashed Wednesday morning in Birmingham, Alabama.
The plane, which took off from Louisville, Kentucky, went down around 4:45 a.m., according to airport officials.
The crash location is about 1/2 mile north of the runway, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told CNN.
Witnesses reported hearing “a large boom” followed by several other explosions.
No buildings were hit and no one on the ground was injured, Bell said.
“This incident is very unfortunate, and our thoughts and prayers are with those involved,” UPS Airlines President Mitch Nichols said in a statement.
What caused the jet to crash was unclear. The weather was calm at the time, Bell said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to the site.
The plane was one of two flights UPS sends to Birmingham each day, company spokesman Mike Mangeot told CNN affiliate WBRC.
Only UPS and FedEx fly the A300 in the United States, according to its manufacturer, Airbus.
While it was once used for commercial passenger flights in the United States, the plane is now used only for cargo flights.
UPS has 53 of the planes, according to Airbus. The plane that crashed Wednesday was built-in 2004, according to FAA records.
Wednesday’s crash is the second involving an A300 in the United States.
In 2001, an American Airlines A300 crashed in the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens, in New York City, shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport.
All 260 people on board the plane, as well as five people on the ground, were killed.
The cause was ultimately attributed to pilot error, according to the NTSB, which said the first officer put excessive pressure on the rudder pedal, causing the separation of the vertical stabilizer.
The latest crash comes nearly three years after UPS’s last major incident, the crash of a Boeing 747 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that killed two crew members.
