LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – UPS Flight 2976 closed its doors and pushed out and down the runway on November 4 at 5:02 p.m. Just 12 minutes later, it would experience a catastrophic failure of a pylon bearing, sending the left engine flying.
The pilots could not get control of it and crashed off the runway and into a busy industrial corridor. Fifteen people died in the crash, including the three pilots on board.
The pylon bearing that attaches the engine to the plane had fractured under stress, along with the lugs, deemed as a primary structural element of the plane’s design, leading to a complete failure. The damage is not obvious outside of a major, detailed inspection, and it would likely not have been something a pilot on a walk-around, pre-flight inspection or a line mechanic at UPS Worldport would have been able to see…