Environment

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear spooked CNN's Kate Bolduan by describing how nearly a Louisville plane crash could have been exponentially worse.

A UPS plane crashed Tuesday evening as it departed Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport for Honolulu, killing at least three crew members and at least six other people and sending up an enormous fireball and thick clouds of black smoke, and the Democratic governor told "CNN This Morning" the death toll would likely rise.

"We do think it's going to grow, sadly," Beshear said. "But the search and rescue mission went through the night has been able to intensify today, so hopefully it won't grow by much. We also have two individuals in critical care at U of L hospital. We're praying for them and for their recovery. It's hard to lose nine plus people in such a violent way."

However, Beshear said the crash could have been far worse.

"This plane barely missed a restaurant bar," he said. "It was very close to a very large Ford plant with hundreds, if not a thousand-plus workers. It was very close to our convention center that's having a big livestock show that people were arriving for. So really tough, but recognize it could be worse."

Bolduan was stunned by the disclosure.

"That just gave me chills thinking about all of the people that were right in the line of this crash," she said. "I mean, when you see the debris field and what happened with this plane, it's terrifying. I mean, how much destruction and damage are we talking about here?"

"Well, it's a huge amount of of damage in about a city block, about a mile," Beshear replied. "Think about the plane loaded with 38,000 gallons of air fuel hitting a petroleum, not refinery, but recycler, which also added to the to the challenges, and then an auto parts lot, and so what we saw is not just the direct impact and explosion of the plane, but everything that then occurred on the ground. Thankfully, there wasn't any significant hazardous material inside the plane. The air quality conditions are improving significantly. We now have a shelter-in-place [order] only around a very small area. We're monitoring water, because of the air, the jet fuel. But the area that we're concerned about is smaller than originally anticipated, and then we've just got so many incredible first responders on on the scene from dozens of different agencies that do such a great job."

"So we are very quickly getting a hold of the environmental search and rescue and other challenges we face," the governor added, "and we'll probably have some pretty close to to final information mid-afternoon."

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