*

NTSB says one of three engines detached from plane at

takeoff

*

Louisville airport reopens, runway where accident happened

will

be closed for 10 days

*

No apparent link to US government shutdown, NTSB official

says

*

Death toll inclcudes three crew members, nine others on

ground

(Updates with latest death toll, paragraphs 1 and 9-10, details

on investigation in paragraph 8 and pilot union comment in

paragraph 14)

By David Shepardson, Allison Lampert and Lisa Baertlein

Nov 5 (Reuters) - U.S. federal safety investigators have

located the "black box" recorders from the wreckage of a UPS

cargo plane that crashed in flames on takeoff from the

airport at Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least 12 people,

officials said on Wednesday.

Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety

Board, also confirmed that a large "plume of fire" erupted

around the plane's left wing and that one of its three engines

detached from that wing as the wide-body jet was rolling down

the runway.

The 34-year-old MD-11 freighter was bound for Honolulu with

three crew members aboard when it crashed just after clearing a

fence at the end of the runway during takeoff on Tuesday

evening, striking a number of structures just beyond airport

property, Inman said.

The plane was immediately engulfed in a fireball, igniting a

string of blazes and scattering a debris field that stretched

about a half a mile (800 m) through an industrial corridor,

including a petroleum recycling facility that was set ablaze and

exploded.

The crash and ensuing fires also forced a shutdown of the

airport for the night and disrupted airport-based operations at

the UPS Worldport facility, the company's global cargo hub for

its air shipments worldwide, slowing delivery services.

Inman, in the first NTSB briefing since the disaster, said

the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were built

to withstand crash impacts and intense heat from fires and they

appeared to be intact when located on Wednesday amid the crash

debris.

"We feel comfortable that once we get these to our lab in

(Washington) D.C. that we will be able to get a good readout of

the applicable data, and that will be yet another point of

information that will really help us understand what happened,"

Inman told reporters.

The NTSB typically issues preliminary reports into major air

crashes within 30 days, but it takes 12 to 24 months to complete

a full investigation, make a finding of probable cause and issue

recommendations to help avoid similar incidents.

GOVERNOR DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY

Earlier on Wednesday, Governor Andy Beshear declared a state

of emergency in Kentucky aimed at hastening the flow of disaster

response resources to the scene of the crash.

As of Wednesday evening, at least nine people were confirmed

to have been killed on the ground, in addition to the three

members of the plane's crew who perished, according to

authorities.

"I'm deeply saddened to share that the death toll has

risen to 12, with several individuals still unaccounted for,"

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said on social media platform X

as recovery teams continued to pick through the crash zone.

Authorities said on Tuesday that 11 people injured on the

ground, some very seriously, had been hospitalized. It was not

known whether any of them were later counted among the dead.

About 200 firefighters and emergency personnel and 50 trucks

were called on Tuesday to battle the blaze that filled the

evening sky with thick, black smoke. Still, Beshear said a

nearby convention center, restaurant and Ford Motor Co ( F )

plant escaped the blaze.

Independent Pilots Association President Captain Bob Travis

said the three pilots in the plane were all on duty. The union,

who represents about 3,300 UPS pilots, said in an interview that

they are a party to the investigation led by the NTSB.

UPS OPERATIONS AFFECTED

The international airport in Louisville reopened to air

traffic early on Wednesday, although the runway where the

accident happened is expected to remain closed for another 10

days, officials said.

UPS said it halted package-sorting operations at its airport

facility on Tuesday and then canceled a parcel-sorting shift on

Wednesday that usually begins in the midmorning.

The NTSB's Inman said so far there was no evidence of a link

between the accident and a 36-day U.S. government shutdown that

has strained air traffic control. He said the airport tower was

believed to have been "at its proper complement" of personnel.

Production of MD-11 planes ended in 2000, and passenger

service officially ended in 2014. Boeing ( BA ) has owned the

program since its 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas. For cargo

operations, there are about 50 MD-11 planes being operated by

FedEx ( FDX ) and UPS worldwide.

Boeing ( BA ) and GE Aerospace, which produces the engines

for the plane, said they had offered support to the

investigation.

U.S. aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said

investigators were expected to focus on the engine which was

seen on video to be ignited and appeared to have separated from

the aircraft.

"It is designed to fly if you lose one engine, but we need

to see the effect of losing that engine on the rest of the

aircraft," Brickhouse said.

The plane was fully loaded with fuel for an 8-1/2-hour

flight to Honolulu.

It was the first UPS cargo plane to crash since August 2013,

when an Airbus aircraft went down on a landing approach to the

international airport in Birmingham, Alabama, killing both crew

members.