When Georgie Dow heard a loud explosion at the auto parts recycling business where he works, he didn't imagine that a UPS cargo plane had just crashed a few meters away.

Dow, chief financial officer of Grade A Auto Parts, a company located just south of the runway at Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport, recounted to CBS News the chaos that followed the crash of UPS Flight 2976, which was headed to Hawaii and went down minutes after takeoff.

“It was one explosion after another, one after another. You didn't know when it was going to stop,” Dow recalled. "I heard screaming. Where are they? Who are they? Does anybody know? It was so hot… You had to back away because the heat was burning your face."

The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, was carrying up to 20,000 packages and 38,000 gallons of fuel.

According to authorities, it reached 200 mph (320 km/h) before the left engine detached from the wing, causing the aircraft to spin sharply and burst into flames before crashing into an industrial area.

Fire, destruction, and missing workers

The flames engulfed several businesses in the area, including Grade A Auto Parts and Kentucky Petroleum Recycling, the latter being “quite directly impacted,” Governor Andy Beshear reported.

The owner of the affected scrap metal recycling business, Sean Garber, said that three of his employees are still missing. “One of the workers had to jump between bales of metal as the heat enveloped him,” he explained. “He saw a customer whose clothes had been completely burned, picked him up, and brought him to safety.” A video recorded by Garber's son shows the scale of the disaster: a thick column of black smoke covering an area of ??almost a kilometer and the sound of small explosions as emergency crews tried to control the fire. As of Wednesday night, at least 14 people remained missing, while 12 had been confirmed dead.including the three crew members of the aircraft.

Investigators confirm engine detached

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recovered the aircraft's black boxes, which will be analyzed in Washington, DC Board member J. Todd Inman confirmed that the left engine detached during climb, and that the sequence of events will be key to determining the cause of the crash.

“Preliminary data shows there was a large plume of fire on the left wing before impact,” Inman said. The wreckage of the plane was scattered for nearly a kilometer, affecting several businesses and parked vehicles.

“I think about my family. I could have died yesterday.”

After the crash, Dow video-called his boss, Sean Garber, to check if his son—who usually works at the junkyard—was safe.

“I think about my family. I think about my kids,” Dow said tearfully. “I think about the last moment I spent with that person… Was that the last moment they'll remember? I think about how I want to act from now on… I could have died yesterday.”

Governor Beshear declared a state of emergency and confirmed that search and rescue operations will continue for several days while victims and missing persons are identified.