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Louisville auto-parts workers describe escape from UPS plane crash a year later
Three Grade A Auto Parts employees survived the Nov. 4, 2025, UPS plane crash after escaping through fire and smoke. They are still grieving co-workers and others who did not make it out, while coping with the lasting effects of the disaster.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A year after a UPS plane crashed near Grade A Auto Parts, three employees who escaped the fire say the seconds they spent fleeing remain vivid — as does the loss of co-workers and loved ones who did not survive.
The crash happened Nov. 4, 2025. Ashley Muse was working in one building; Jamel Beard and Manuel Leos were in another. All three got out as flames spread, but each continues to grapple with the aftermath.
Leos was heading toward a door when the building began shaking. Beard first mistook the sound for a train, then tackled Leos as the danger became clear. In Muse’s building, a falling bookcase knocked her down and trapped her until someone lifted it away.
Muse and Leos described seeing fire approaching. Leos said flames left him with one apparent escape route: “Through fire.” He and Beard ran as co-workers helped one another out. In Muse’s building, Megan Washburn pushed her toward a window. Muse said she believes Washburn saved her life.
The escape was followed by the realization that others were still inside. Washburn and Trina Chavez, the mother of Beard’s daughter, were among those who died. Muse also recalled hearing a child crying as she fled. Three-year-old Kimberly Asa and her grandfather, Lou Fedon, did not survive.
Beard is now helping his daughter cope with her mother’s death. “She needs her mother, and that was taken away,” he said.
Muse said nightmares and certain sounds or smells can bring the crash back without warning. The experience has also changed how she thinks about the future: “I want to live,” she said.
For the survivors, getting out took moments; living with the loss has taken far longer. Muse said those who survived have to keep going for the people who could not.