Investigators look into 'repeating bell' heard during takeoff of UPS cargo plane that crashed

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A UPS cargo plane was nearly airborne when a bell sounded in the cockpit. For the next 25 seconds, the bell rang and the pilots tried to control the aircraft as it barely lifted off the runway, its left wing ablaze and missing an engine, and then plowed into the ground in a spectacular fireball, the chief investigator said Friday.

The crash Tuesday at UPS Worldport, the company’s global aviation hub in Louisville, Kentucky, killed 14 people, including the three pilots on the MD-11 that was headed for Honolulu.

National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said the cockpit voice recorder captured the bell that sounded about 37 seconds after the crew called for takeoff thrust. There are different types of alarms with varying meanings, he said, and investigators haven't determined why the bell rang, though they know the left wing was burning and the engine on that side had detached.

Inman said it would be months before a transcript of the cockpit recording is made public as part of that investigation process.

Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said the bell likely was signaling the engine fire.

“It occurred at a point in the takeoff where they were likely past their decision speed to abort the takeoff,” Guzzetti told The Associated Press after Inman’s news conference. “They were likely past their critical decision speed to remain on the runway and stop safely. … They’ll need to thoroughly investigate the options the crew may or may not have had.”

Dramatic video captured the aircraft crashing into businesses and erupting in a fireball. Footage from phones, cars and security cameras has given investigators evidence of what happened from many different angles.

The NTSB clarified Friday that preliminary data on the aircraft’s altitude indicated it got only about 100 feet above ground level, not 475 feet. It reached a speed of 210 mph (340 kph) before crashing just outside the airport, Inman said.

The left engine’s main component and pieces of fan blades were recovered from the airfield. Inman said UPS indicated no maintenance work was performed just before the flight. He noted investigators will look at video to see what, if anything, was being done around the MD-11 aircraft in preceding days.

The UPS package handling facility in Louisville is the company’s largest. The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300 flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.

UPS Worldport operations resumed Wednesday night with its Next Day Air, or night sort, operation, spokesperson Jim Mayer said.

Litigation over the crash has already begun. A federal lawsuit was filed Thursday against UPS by an automotive repair shop destroyed in the crash and a resident treated at a hospital after breathing in smoke.

The manufacturer of the plane and its engine also were named in the lawsuit, which alleges the defendants “negligently breached their duty of reasonable care and preventing unreasonable harm.” It seeks unspecified damages.

The companies named as defendants didn't immediately return emails seeking comment Friday. ___

Mattise reported from Nashville. AP writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.