Witnesses of UPS plane crash recall "explosion after explosion," melted clothes and chaos

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When Georgie Dow heard an explosion at the auto parts recycling business where she works in Louisville, Kentucky, she had no idea a UPS aircraft had just crashed outside.

Dow, the chief financial officer of Grade A Auto Parts located just south of the Louisville International Airport runway where UPS Flight 2976 was departing on a flight to Hawaii, recalled the chaos and feeling the fire as she went outside Tuesday and saw black plumes of smoke surrounding their business.

"It was explosion after explosion after explosion, so you just didn't know when it was going to stop," Dow told CBS News on Wednesday, the day after the crash that killed at least 12 people. "It's chaos, you don't know what's going to happen next. What's the next thing? What's going to blow up? It's scary."

"I heard people yelling. Where are these people? Naming them. Does anybody know," she said, and recalled seeing melted clothing of employees. "It was so hot ... You took a step back because it was like heat in your face. There was no going to help."

A map shows the path taken by a UPS plane before it crashed in Louisville, Kentucky, Nov. 4, 2025.

The UPS plane carrying up to 20,000 packages and 38,000 gallons of fuel was reaching 200 mph when it crashed shortly after takeoff. Videos show the left wing of the MD-11 aircraft on fire, and the plane was tilting to the left before exploding into a trail of flames. The plane's left engine was later seen lying on the tarmac, as investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board work to determine what went wrong.

NTSB board member J. Todd Inman on Wednesday confirmed that the plane's left engine appeared to have separated from the plane. He said investigators have also identified the plane's black boxes, which suffered some fire damage but specialists "will be able to get a good readout of applicable data" once the boxes arrive at the NTSB's Washington, D.C., laboratory.

The rest of the aircraft slammed into Sean Garber's scrap metal recycling company and other nearby businesses, including a petroleum recycling company that was "hit pretty directly," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.

Aerial footage shows the aftermath of a plane crash in Louisville, Kentucky, Nov. 4, 2025.

Dow, who was "severely distraught" following the explosion, immediately video-called him, Garber said, and he wanted to know that his son, who often works in the scrap yard, was safe. Joey Garber was with Dow at the time of the crash, but three of their employees are missing, Sean Garber said.

One of the surviving employees had to jump between bales of metal as heat came over on top of him, Garber and Dow recalled. The worker spotted one of their customers whose clothes had been completely burned off, and he picked him up and took him to safety, Garber said.

Cellphone footage shot by Garber's son shows the aftermath of the fiery crash. Flames and thick smoke consumed an area nearly half a mile long. Dozens of people were injured, officials said, and there are believed to be at least 14 people missing as of Wednesday night.

Garber said he hasn't been able to identify who's missing because there's no power to the company system, adding that he's working with investigators to see what they can figure out.

When asked about how she's feeling in the aftermath of the tragedy, Dow said, "I think about my family. I think about my kids."

"You think about what was the last moment I had with this person. Would that have been the last moment that they're going to remember? I think about how I want to act going forward ... I could have died yesterday," she said.