Bomb link ruled out of UPS crash

A UPS cargo plane that crashed here in September did not have a bomb on board, UAE aviation authorities have confirmed.

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DUBAI // A UPS cargo plane that crashed here in September did not have a bomb on board, UAE aviation authorities said yesterday. The announcement by the General Civil Aviation Authority came amid speculation the crash might have been the result of a terror attack - possibly linked to the bomb found on a FedEx cargo plane in Dubai on Friday. "There was no presence of acoustic evidence or any forensic indication supporting the detonation of an explosive device," the authority said. It cited evidence from the digital flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, commonly known as the black box. Two pilots were killed when the plane, a Boeing 747-400, went down in flames. The cause of the fire remains undetermined. According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, the plane carried industrial lithium batteries, which are highly flammable. Investigators will return to the US in three weeks to co-ordinate with Boeing and the US National Transportation Safety Board.

* Carol Huang