15 Aug 2013

UPS cargo jet in crash

9:54 am on 15 August 2013

A UPS cargo plane crashed near the airport in Birmingham, Alabama, on Wednesday, killing the pilot and co-pilot.

Mayor William Bell said a fire in a sparsely populated area that broke out afterwards was under control and there were no other casualties.

"It was quite a large fire and there were two to three explosions after the plane caught fire, after the crash itself," he said.

United Parcel Service flight 1354, en route from Louisville, Kentucky, to Birmingham, crashed at about 5am CDT, according to the FAA. The plane was identified as an Airbus A300.

No distress calls were made to the airport tower.

UPS, the world's biggest package-delivery company, said it is till determining the details of the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

Airbus said the aircraft involved was delivered to UPS from its production line in 2003, and had accumulated about 11,000 flight hours over about 6800 flights.

The model has been in service since 1974. It has been involved in about 10 crashes: the latest was last November, when the front landing gear of a DHL jet collapsed on landing in Bratislava, Slovakia.