UPS plane crashes near airport in Alabama

The plane was on the way to Louisville, Ky., a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman says. The pilot and co-pilot died in the crash, al.com reports.

A large UPS cargo plane crashed this morning in an open field just outside an airport in Birmingham, Ala., an airport spokeswoman said.

(See coverage from al.com.)

Toni Herrera-Bast, a spokeswoman for Birmingham’s airport authority, says there are no homes in the immediate area of the crash.

U.S. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says the A300 plane crashed on approach to the airport before dawn today.

Al.com is reporting the pilot and co-pilot died in the crash, citing Birmingham Mayor William Bell as the source of that news.

Bergen says the plane was en route from Louisville, Ky.

Herrera-Bast says the plane crashed in “open land” she described as a grassy field on the outskirts of Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. She says the crash hasn’t affected airport operations.