UPS Airlines Flight 2976 was a scheduled domestic cargo flight in the United States from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky, to Honolulu, Hawaii. On November 4, 2025, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 operating the flight separated from its left engine during its takeoff roll and crashed into an industrial area seconds after liftoff from the runway, at about 5:13 p.m. local time (22:13 UTC). The crash killed all three crew members on board the aircraft, and twelve people on the ground, one of whom survived until December 25.
The accident is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. Following the accident, UPS retired its remaining MD-11 fleet in January 2026.
UPS Airlines is the United States' second-largest cargo airline (after FedEx Express). Founded in 1988, the company had suffered only two fatal accidents before Flight 2976: UPS Airlines Flight 6 in 2010 and UPS Airlines Flight 1354 in 2013, each of which killed two people (two crew members on board in each case).
Flight 2976 was a scheduled domestic cargo flight, operated by UPS Airlines from its hub in Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky, to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii, an 8.5-hour flight.
The aircraft, N259UP, was a 34-year-old McDonnell Douglas MD-11F, first delivered to Thai Airways International in 1991 with the registration HS-TME, after which it was converted to a cargo aircraft and delivered to UPS Airlines in 2006. It had flown 21,043 cycles and for about 92,992 hours, and was equipped with three General Electric CF6-80C2D1F turbofan engines. The last visual inspections of the left pylon aft mount were performed in October 2021. More rigorous "Special Detailed Inspections" for the mount lugs and wing clevis were not yet due, as the aircraft's 21,043 accumulated cycles were well below the 28,000 and 29,200 cycle thresholds required for those checks. NTSB revealed in May 2026 that Boeing asked the FAA to increase the inspection interval for the lugs from 19,900 to 29,200 flight cycles even though it had received five reports of the spherical bearing, which is housed within the lugs, fracturing long before the aircraft hit its designated inspection interval. Two months before the crash, it had been grounded for six weeks to repair a cracked fuel tank, and corrosion was later found along two structural beams in the fuselage. The aircraft re-entered service a few weeks before the crash.
The crew consisted of Captain Richard Wartenberg (57), a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who served with the 445th Airlift Wing, and was the pilot monitoring. He had accumulated about 8,613 total flight hours, including 4,918 in the MD-11. First officer Lee Truitt (45) was the pilot flying and had accumulated about 9,200 total hours, including 994 in the MD-11. Relief officer Dana Diamond (62) had accumulated about 15,250 total flight hours, including 8,775 in the MD-11.
The aircraft took off from runway 17R, heading south, at about 5:13 p.m. EST (UTC−5). Weather at the time was clear, with wind at 6 knots (11 km/h; 7 mph) from the southeast with visibility of 10 miles (16 km). According to initial flight tracking data, the aircraft reached an altitude of 175 feet (53 m) and a maximum ground speed of 186 knots (344 km/h; 214 mph).
During takeoff, shortly after rotation, the left engine, with most of its pylon still attached, separated from the wing and flipped backwards over the wing's leading edge.
As it detached, a fire ignited on the engine, and it tumbled up and over the aircraft, coming to rest on the grass on the right side of runway 17R. A fire also broke out near the left pylon attachment point and continued to burn until impact. The aircraft subsequently entered a descent.
The jet's left main landing gear struck the roof of a UPS Supply Chain warehouse, leaving a 300-foot (90 m) gash. Its left wing then hit a stand of fuel tanks at the Kentucky Petroleum Recycling company's depot, causing a fire to erupt and the aircraft to roll more than 90 degrees to the left. Finally, the airplane crashed into a semi-truck parking area and an auto scrap yard, Grade A Auto Parts. The debris field stretched approximately 3,000 feet (900 m) south-southeast from the UPS warehouse. The flight was not carrying hazardous cargo.
Video analysis indicates that the tail-mounted engine also experienced a malfunction, with bursts of flame seen from the exhaust. Aviation experts have suggested that debris from the detached engine may have been ingested into the tail engine, inducing a compressor stall and thus causing the engine to surge, but this is yet to be confirmed by the NTSB.
Multiple buildings were set on fire or destroyed, with reports of people trapped inside.
The crash was the deadliest in UPS Airlines history, killing fifteen people: all three crew members on board the aircraft and another twelve on the ground. The dead included a three-year-old child and her grandfather. As of November 20, 2025, twenty-three people were known to have suffered injuries, two of which were described as "serious" and twenty-one as "minor". On December 25, 2025, Mayor Greenberg announced that a man who sustained severe injuries had died, raising the death toll to fifteen.
Two employees of the auto yard were initially reported as unaccounted for, and it was unknown how many customers were on the premises at the time. Fifteen families initially reported missing relatives. On November 6, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg reported that six of the missing had been accounted for, leaving nine still missing. Two days later, Greenberg said that the missing people were believed to have been found.
The day after the crash, a spokesperson reported that fifteen people had been treated at UofL Health facilities, all but two of whom had been discharged.
All flights to and from the airport were immediately canceled. Louisville-Jefferson County Emergency Management issued a shelter-in-place order centered on the airport with a radius of 5 miles (8 km). This was later reduced to 1 mi (1,600 m). Wireless Emergency Alert messages were issued to those in the shelter-in-place area. At the last briefing of the day, Mayor Greenberg said that more than 100 firefighters were at the scene. Local police officials said families should not seek loved ones at hospitals, to avoid overwhelming them, but to visit a reunification center at the police training academy. UPS temporarily suspended operations at its Worldport air hub. The fire was nearly contained by 10:30 p.m., freeing up first responders to search for victims. All public schools in the Jefferson County School District were closed the day after the crash.
The radius of the shelter-in-place order was reduced a second time, effective at 7:30 a.m. on November 5, centered near 7501 Grade Lane, to 1⁄4 mi (400 m). The Louisville Metro Government set up a website for people to report and document debris, which they were urged not to touch, and numerous departures were delayed or canceled. At 7:40 a.m., Louisville International Airport announced that Runway 11/29 was open. UPS resumed operations from Louisville later that day. The incident runway, 17R/35L, was reopened around 4:45 p.m. EST on November 6, returning the airfield to full operational status.
On November 8, UPS, FedEx, and Western Global Airlines temporarily grounded their respective MD-11 fleets "out of an abundance of caution" following instructions from their manufacturer, Boeing (inherited from McDonnell Douglas). At the time of the incident, UPS operated 26 MD-11s, a small fraction of its fleet of over 500 aircraft, while FedEx had 28 MD-11s in a fleet of more than 700. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an emergency airworthiness directive (EAD) for MD-11 aircraft requiring inspections and any applicable corrective actions before flight. On November 14, the FAA issued an EAD grounding the DC-10, the MD-11's predecessor aircraft, for the same reason.