Death toll from UPS cargo plane crash in Louisville rises to 15

More than seven weeks after a man was severely injured in the fiery crash of a UPS cargo plane in Louisville, Kentucky, he has died, officials announced Thursday, raising the death toll from the incident to 15 people.

The victim was identified by Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg as Alain Rodriguez Colina.

Colina “suffered severe injuries at the time of the crash and passed earlier this Christmas Day,” Greenberg wrote in a social media post to X Thursday afternoon.

On Nov. 4, UPS Flight 2976 bound for Hawaii crashed moments after takeoff from Louisville International Airport, where UPS has its global aviation hub.  

The plane barely lifted off when it came down in a commercial area near the airport, crashing into several businesses. The three pilots aboard the plane were killed, along with 12 people on the ground, including Colina. Another nearly two dozen people were hurt.

The plane was carrying up to 20,000 packages and 38,000 gallons of fuel.

In its preliminary report, the National Transportation Safety Board said that the plane reached an altitude of just 30 feet, clearing a runway fence, before coming down. Photos and video also showed the left engine of the McDonnell Douglas MD-11F separating from the wing and falling off during takeoff. The NTSB said there was evidence of cracks in the left wing’s engine mount.

The debris field from the crash stretched a half-mile, Todd Inman, a member of the NTSB, told reporters the day after the crash.

Inman also said that the cockpit voice recorder — one of the plane’s two black boxes that was recovered from the plane — recorded a persistent bell that sounded in the cockpit for about 25 seconds as the plane went down.  

It could take the NTSB, the lead investigative agency in the crash, up to two years to release its final report.