Man loses friends, home in UPS plane crash: ‘It still messes with me’
By DeAndria Turner
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WLKY) — A man who lived just steps from the UPS plane crash site says he’s lucky to be alive, even as he mourns friends who didn’t make it.
Robert Sanders has worked as a maintenance man at Grade A Auto Parts and Recycling for 12 years. He also lived in his RV on the property, which became part of the crash site on Tuesday morning.
“I started hearing this real loud like rumbling, roaring sound, and I stepped outside the bay door there and looked, and the only thing I could see was black smoke, flames, and fireballs,” Sanders said.
He told WLKY he had just been inside his RV minutes before the plane came down.
“I had just been in my RV like two minutes early, and I came down there to building 12,” he said.
Moments later, a plane filled with jet fuel came crashing down, ripping straight through his RV.
“You think about that thing a thousand times…what would happen if a plane crashes, but you don’t think it will ever really happen. But then it happened,” Sanders said.
Now, all he has left are the clothes on his back and his truck. But what haunts him most are the faces of three close friends who didn’t survive.
“I got three friends, close friends that are gone,” he said.
Visibly shaken, Sanders said the memories still play on a loop, the sound of the explosion, the smell of smoke, the terror of the moment.
“It was just terrifying. I’d never been that scared, you know? And it’s still messing with me,” he said.
For now, Sanders says he’s holding on to the only thing the crash couldn’t destroy, his will to survive.
He told WLKY he’s grateful to be alive, but he’s starting over from nothing. He doesn’t know where he’ll go next, but he says one thing is certain: he’ll never forget what happened here.
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