UPS Cargo Jet Crash: NTSB Investigators Having Trouble Recovering Flight Recorder

The UPS Cargo Jet Crash is under investigation but authorities from the National Transportation Safety Board have failed to recover the planes flight recorders.

Investigators have not been able to recover the flight recorder because of still smoldering wreckage at the crash site.

Senior NTSB official Robert Sumwalt believes crews will eventually be able to recover the cockpit voice and flight data recorders which are located in the tail-end of the aircraft.

The UPS cargo jet crash led to the death of the planes pilot and co-pilot.

According to air traffic control the planes pilots did not issue a distress call before its engines sputtered and the aircraft crash landed in an open field.

The plane was identified as United Parcel Service Inc flight 1354 which took off from Louisville, Kentucky. The UPS cargo jet crash landed just outside of the Birmingham airport.

The jet was identified as an Airbus A300. The airliner company said the plane had less than 11,000 hours of operation.

According to a representative from the National Traffic Safety Board the plane plowed 200 yards through an empty field and hit several trees and a house.

The planes nose was shown to be largely intact after the crash but was completely ripped apart from the jets body.

According to UPS the cargo jet was carrying various items belonging to its customers.

37-year-old Shanda Fanning of Lynchburg, Tennessee was identified as the first victim of the cargo jet crash.

26-members of the NTSB are investigating the plane crash.

Witnesses say they heard the planes engines sputter out before it crashed. One victim claims that the plane was already on fire before it fatally crash landed.

UPS and the NTSB have promised to release more details as soon as they are discovered.

Thankfully the homes that existed in the field just several years earlier were razed to create a new runway for the airport.

[Image via Wikipedia / Piotr_J]