LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville residents who live near the site of Tuesday's UPS plane crash are still processing the tragic event that killed 12 people and left several others injured or missing.
Chaotic and surreal are some of the words they're using to describe what they saw.
Many who live in Barrington Pointe, a mobile home park near the crash site, said it was “hard to believe it was real" as they watched the thick, black smoke and intense flames with their own eyes immediately after the crash.
"I thought it was crazy because I didn’t know what was happening. I thought something was on fire, like a building or a plant or something," Victor Rodriguez, who was along the road and took video of the fire just seconds after the plane crashed, said.
Rodriguez said he had "no clue it was a plane crash" and was surprised that it was a UPS jet.
"I didn’t think that could happen," he said, describing the scene like it was a movie. He said stayed inside as the air cleared.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-11, built in 1991, went down around 5:15 p.m. after its left wing caught fire. UPS Flight 2976 was fully loaded with fuel for the long flight to Honolulu from Louisville's UPS Worldport. All three people on board died in the crash.
The crash triggered an initial 5-mile shelter in place which was eventually decreased to a mile then a quarter mile from around the site, including Barrington Point, which is off National Turnpike.
A separate shelter-in-place was also active for several hours in Jeffersonville, Indiana, from 10th Street to the Ohio River and east along the river to the Port of Indiana.
Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville canceled school for Wednesday "due to the necessary shelter-in-place order." All extracurricular activities and athletics are also canceled. Classes will be back in session Thursday morning.
Evans Martinez, a JCPS student who witnessed the crash, said his sister was home alone when the crash happened.
“When she heard a boom, she went outside and called us — she showed us the whole thing. It was super black — everything,” Martinez said.
Tristan Rodriguez, another witness, described the fire and explosion.
“I saw a fire, and it went boom. It was orangish-yellowish — then we saw the ambulance,” he said.
The students said much of the neighborhood was outside watching, but went back inside as the smoke grew heavier and more intense.
While many neighbors near the crash site stepped outside to see what was happening, many immediately saw a huge black plume of smoke and smelled the fire.
"When I came out here, I couldn’t see anything so I had to go to our back yard and that’s when I seen all the smoke," Stella Hall, a resident who lives in the Glengarry subdivision, said.
Hall said it was surreal how close it was.
"I could not believe it happened, and I mean, I guess you would think something like that might happen eventually since there is an airport there but it’s like wow, I was very shocked," she said.
Despite being a scary situation, Hall said she's thankful she and her neighbors are safe.
"That is really all I could think of is 'thank goodness it didn’t hit our neighborhood,'" she said.
While some neighbors grabbed their phones to take video, others checked in with family members who also live near the crash site. Jean Wolfe's son called her to check on her. Even though Wolfe lives in the Glengarry subdivision, which was near the crash site, it was still a scary situation.
"I was frightened, I was really frightened for the passengers. I thought it was a passenger plane," she said.
As of Wednesday evening, a shelter-in-place remains in effect for everything within 1/4 mile radius of the airport.
Residents said the crash felt like something out of a movie — a nightmare that has left their community shaken as recovery and investigation efforts continue.
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