Yesterday, I wrote an article that discussed a UPS plane that crashed at an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, the site of a major UPS hub. The plane exploded into flames barely after getting off the ground. What goes up, as we all know, must come down. And that’s what happened here!
Yesterday, the death toll was three and as of the time that this article was published, the count is now at least seven, including the three crewmen on the plane. Yesterday, I discussed possible pilot incompetence, but it turns out that may not be the case. The left engine exploded and fell off, spelling doom for the people on the plane and those poor sons of bitches on the ground (at least four of them), all victims of a pilot who should have known better.
It is not yet known why the engine fell off of the thirty-four-year old plane, but surely there had to be some kind of warning alarms that went off prior to take off. Surely the pilots would have had some indication that something was amiss. If they did have such alarms and did not abort the takeoff, it’s gross negligence and incompetence. If they did not have alarms going off, why not?
Planes don’t just fall out of the sky, you know. Something has to cause a crash and if something were wrong with the engine, it’s hard to believe that there were no warning signs. I choose to believe that the pilots would not have dared to ignore the alarm and that they would abort the takeoff. The fact that they went through with the takeoff is concerning.
If the pilots are the three dead people, then the airline is looking at a ton of lawsuits. People on the ground paid the ultimate price for something that the pilots almost certainly being incompetent, or at the very least, they paid the price for someone ignoring what had to be obvious signs. I refuse to believe that the engine would just fall off out of nowhere with no warning whatsoever.
Coming from a broadcasting background, I am a member of several broadcast engineers’ Facebook groups. People in all of those groups are asking why the Emergency Alert System wasn’t activated in the immediate area. The EAS is that thing where the annoying tones go off to alert people of severe weather and many other types of alerts. As it turns out, there are several event codes for this one, so in theory, the EAS could have been activated.
The first code would be a Civil Emergency Message (CEM). They could also have used a Hazardous Materials Warning (HWM) given that explosion and the oil that likely spilled all over the area. Maybe even a Local Area Emergency (LAE). Finally, the Shelter in Place warning could have been issued (SPW).
However, this situation did not warrant an EAS activation. Activating an alert over this would have been irresponsible and it would have cost stations dearly in the form of missed ad revenue.
Numerous people in the groups are Monday-morning quarterbacking the situation, crying out that given the severity of the incident, there should have been an activation. Not that matters, but a shelter-in-place warning was put out. That might be justification for activating the EAS, but not really.
What happened was a major incident, I’ll give you that, but it clearly did not meet the criteria for activating the EAS, something that could have caused mass panic when combined with the explosion itself. I’ll tell you this: my station would not pass the alert.
If someone along the daisy chain pushed out an activation to the Local Primary stations that would then push that alert onto all the other area stations, my station would not put the alert out over the air. I would immediately fire any personnel who chose to put it out over my air. Just because the EAS is activated, it does not mean that stations are obligated to pass the alerts, with four exceptions.
Yes, what happened was serious. Not a tragedy, but a serious incident. But not serious enough to interrupt programming and ad revenue. Remember, broadcasting, above all else, is a business and my business decision would be to ignore that particular alert.
Come to think of it, I would only pass the bare minimum: the weekly, monthly and national tests and the EAN, which is basically the alert that signifies Russia’s launch against us. But that’s a whole different article.
It is what it is, folks. Crying about it now isn’t going to change anything. The EAS did not activate and that was the right call to make. I can tell you that if anyone I employed passed an alert for this, that person would be without a job. Remember, the EAS was not activated for 9/11, so why would it be activated for an inconsequential airplane crash? By that, I mean that the footage makes it seem worse than it really is. The only reason that everything was so intense is because the plane ostensibly had a full tank of fuel.
But back to the crash. Why would an engine on a relatively young plane just fall off? Something had to cause it. My immediate thought goes to sabotage of some sort. Yes, that’s a serious accusation, and I have no proof to back it up, but it’s my opinion that there’s even a small possibility that this was an intentional act. Engines don’t just magically separate from their planes.
None of the questions being asked will be answered right away. It may take a year or more to come to a final determination as to what caused the engine to fall off. The fact that it fell off right after takeoff is concerning. Could this have been prevented through proper maintenance, which may or may not have been done? I’m sure lots of other people are asking these same questions and more.
The only people whom I feel sorry for are the innocent people on the ground. Because someone screwed up somewhere, and we don’t yet know who that someone or someones is or are, people died. They were just going about their day, minding their own business, and they died in a horrible and intensive cremation. I hope their survivors sue UPS and bankrupt it.