We had a plane fall out of the sky on us here in Louisville this past Tuesday. Falling may not be the best way to describe what it did, the MD-11 parted ways with an engine just as it reached the point of no return and barely lifted off before crashing back down just south of the runway. The UPS plane was headed for Honolulu and all the fuel for that long flight sparked a massive conflagration when it hit, thanks to which almost all of Louisville got to spend the rest of the evening sheltering in place.
Spent much of the next day trying to find a vantage point from which I could get shots of the crash site. Nothing really panned out, everything with a line of sight was cordoned off by the cops, eventually ended up on the northwestern side of the airport at the opposite end of the runways from the crash site. Got some distant shots of the FBI and NTSB out along the runways, but there wasn't much in the way of visuals to tell the story from there. Still kept shooting, have always had a fascination with aircraft and watching them lumber and scream their way into the air is something that will never get old for me. Managed to spot a few MD-11s like the one that crashed taking off, in the days since UPS and later the FAA have grounded those aircraft. That's one in the photo above, with a passenger jet coming in for a landing behind.
My aircraft recognition skills get a little spotty when it comes to civilian aircraft but the MD-11 is easy to ID. It's the only trijet that UPS flies (flew?), so the tail engine is a dead giveaway. The one that went down here lost its left engine along the runway, and when that came loose the top engine was seen to emit a puff of smoke, likely meaning it ingested debris and failed. Didn't really leave the pilots much to work with.
Thought this was the runway the doomed flight departed from, but it was still shut down at the time. Happened to be there for golden hour but there was little golden to it. The huge, ominous column of black smoke from the day before had dissipated but the sky was a hazy, smoke grey color largely impervious to the sunset.
Ever stop and watch planes taking off and landing? Still seems a bit unbelievable that something that big and heavy could actually fly. Had to manual focus to get this shot of a Boeing 747 (I think) as it left the ground, could feel the engines as it passed overhead on its climb skyward. Will have to venture back here with a longer lens (used a 70-300mm for this) and see if I can't get some closeups. Right now though it's time I flew on to bed. Anybody else live a hop, skip, and a jump from an airport?
