NTSB releases final altitude, speed of UPS plane that crashed leaving Louisville's airport

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Flight data showed the UPS plane that crashed taking off from Louisville's airport Tuesday was going 210 miles per hour at 475 feet of altitude at the last reading retrieved from the crash debris.

In a news conference Thursday in Louisville, NTSB member Todd Inman said the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder was quickly flown Wednesday to Washington, and the information was successfully extracted. A transcript with "pertinent information" will be released soon, but Inman said the NTSB doesn't release audio in these situations. The speed and altitude readings were collected at 5:13:32 Tuesday.

On Thursday, Inman said investigators walked runways 17L and 17R at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport and found multiple pieces of engine fan blades as well as the main component of the left engine.

"We have transferred all of those to a secured location for further examination and will be using that to further analyze any mechanical aspects," Inman said.

Investigators have reviewed airport security video and said it showed the left engine detaching from the plane during the takeoff.

How we got here

The McDonnell Douglas MD-11, built in 1991, went down around 5:15 p.m. Nov. 4 after its left wing caught fire. UPS Flight 2976 was fully loaded with fuel for the nine-hour flight to Honolulu from UPS Worldport.

IMAGES | UPS plane explosion sparks massive plume of smoke across Louisville area

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said crews are working to identify 12 victims from the UPS cargo plane crash earlier this week while the search continues for nine others reported missing.

The bodies of the victims have been removed from the wreckage site by the Jefferson County Coroner's Office, and officials are working to positively identify each of the victims. The mayor said Thursday morning that crews have located six of 15 people reported missing after the crash, but the mangled wreckage in the area of the crash has made the search more difficult.

As of 6 p.m. Thursday, 13 people had died from the crash.

Flight records suggest the 34-year-old plane underwent maintenance while it was on the ground in San Antonio for more than a month, from September through mid-October, which Inman confirmed Thursday. The AP reported it wasn't clear what work was done, but according to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the plane needed a critical fuel tank repair.

The report cited FAA maintenance records that show the jet needed a permanent repair to fix a crack in the fuel tank before it returned to service. WDRB is working to independently obtain those maintenance records from the FAA.

Inman said Thursday that, while the flight Tuesday was delayed two hours, there's currently no evidence that a maintenance issue played a role prior to takeoff.

"UPS has told us, at this time, that there was no maintenance work done on the aircraft in question immediately prior to the flight that would delay it in any way, shape or form," he said. "Obviously, it is our job to verify anything we learn through multiple sources, but (there's) nothing to this point to dispute that. So it's our belief that that there was not a maintenance issue regarding that aircraft prior to the flight subject."

This story will be updated.

'It was intense' | Aerial footage shows scale of UPS plane crash site in Louisville

NTSB says an engine fell off UPS plane before deadly Louisville crash