Investigative Hearing

In May, the National Transportation Safety Board held a two-day public hearing on the crash of UPS flight 2976 in Louisville, Kentucky. The Federal Register notice that announced it is still one of the clearest public summaries of what investigators wanted to look at.

The facts, as NTSB laid them out: on November 4, 2025, at about 5:14 p.m. Eastern, the Boeing (McDonnell-Douglas) MD-11F cargo plane hit buildings and the ground shortly after takeoff from runway 17R at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. All 3 crew members and 11 people on the ground were killed. Two people on the ground were seriously hurt, and one of them died 51 days later. Another 21 people had minor injuries. The flight was bound for Honolulu.

The hearing ran May 19 and 20, 2026, in NTSB’s boardroom at 429 L’Enfant Plaza SW in Washington. Two big topics were on the list. First, fleet safety processes: how problems found during inspection and maintenance get reported, and how the FAA and Boeing run continued operational safety. Second, pylon design: FAA certification requirements for pylon separation failures and the aircraft systems routed near pylon attachment points.

Keep in mind that a hearing gathers facts. It is not a finding of probable cause. NTSB’s final report on the crash comes later.

Federal Register filing: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/04/2026-08602/investigative-hearing

This is a Notice Nearby publisher-desk Federal brief — a short in-house summary of a public federal filing. It is not official agency minutes, not a newspaper story, and not Legal Publication. It does not satisfy a statutory notice requirement.