UPS Names Pilots Lost In Tragic Plane Crash As Investigation Continues
On Thursday, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg announced that another person had passed away at UofL Hospital, increasing the death toll to 13. Greenberg also confirmed that nine people are still unaccounted for.
“I had previously reported that there were 15 individuals that had been reported as missing,” Greenberg said. “We have located six of those individuals over the last 24 hours…If you do the math…we may have located all the victims. There may be more that have not yet been reported… Our hope is that we have located all of the victims at this point, but again, we do not know. The search will continue.”
Captain Richard Wartenberg, First Officer Lee Truitt and International Relief Officer Captain Dana Diamond were identified by UPS on Thursday as the crew members onboard the aircraft when it went down.
During a media update on Thursday, the NTSB confirmed that Flight 2976 was traveling at a speed of 210 miles per hour and at an altitude of 475 feet at the time of the last reading retrieved. Spokesperson Todd Inman also said the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder have been recovered. Inman said both of the so-called ‘Black Boxes” suffered from heat but did not sustain intrusion from the crash or the resulting fire. NTSB says the full investigation could take two years.
UPS Worldport has reopened and UPS planes are flying in as scheduled. FlyLouisville announced that all three runways at SDF had reopened as of 4:45 p.m. on Thursday, and were fully operational.