Authorities have officially identified the mysterious figure seen in surveillance footage boarding a UPS Airlines cargo plane minutes before it crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport last month — a revelation that investigators say could “completely reshape” the ongoing federal inquiry.
According to law enforcement sources, the individual has been identified as Daniel Kerrigan, a 42-year-old former UPS aviation technician who disappeared under unclear circumstances nearly a year ago.
“The identification has been confirmed through facial recognition and biometric analysis,” said FBI spokesperson Michelle Yates during a late-night press briefing in Louisville. “We can now say with confidence that the person seen entering the aircraft moments before departure was Daniel Kerrigan.”
The discovery comes after leaked airport security footage surfaced online last week, showing a shadowed figure in maintenance gear entering the restricted tarmac area and walking directly toward the UPS aircraft moments before takeoff.
Kerrigan had previously worked for UPS’s engineering and safety division, specializing in electrical systems and cargo bay wiring. He resigned abruptly in 2024 after being suspended over what company records described as “procedural discrepancies.”
“What’s most concerning is that Kerrigan had both the knowledge and the access to manipulate a system like this,” one federal aviation official said.
Investigators now believe that Kerrigan may have tampered with a control relay unit found damaged within the aircraft’s navigation system — a malfunction that may have contributed to the fatal crash which killed 12 people.
Police are also probing why Kerrigan’s employee security credentials were still active at the time of the incident, allowing him to bypass at least two restricted checkpoints.
“We’re looking at a potential systems failure — not just technical, but procedural,” Yates added. “This shouldn’t have been possible.”
The FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have launched a joint investigation into possible internal complicity and whether Kerrigan acted alone.
Family members of the victims expressed both relief and horror upon hearing the identification. One relative described it as “a face to the nightmare we’ve all been living with.”
Authorities have yet to determine how Kerrigan accessed the airport undetected, or whether the sealed metallic container found in the wreckage was connected to him — but officials confirmed that chemical traces inside the device are now undergoing analysis at a federal laboratory.
The investigation remains active, with law enforcement officials calling this “one of the most complex aviation sabotage cases in modern U.S. history.”
