AA 191 had a crack where the red dashed line is shown. May have been on the front side of the bearing.
Posted on 11/20/2025 2:17:25 PM PST by Java4Jay
What’s there to know? The plane crashed.
Are you serious?
THE ENGINE FELL OFF-—AND THEN THE PLANE CRASHED
Um, maybe figure out WHY and HOW it crashed so it doesn’t happen again?
I’m just spitballing here, but I think I may be close.🙄
CC
There oughta be a national transportation safety board to look into things like this.
Fatigue cracks in part of the aircraft’s left engine pylon assembly have emerged as a key factor in the Nov. 4 fatal crash of a UPS McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 Freighter (MD-11F). Investigators found cracks in the left (No. 1) engine pylon’s aft bulkhead forward and aft mount lugs, a preliminary NTSB...
It’s possible, given the age of the model, the diminishing reserve of parts in the Arizona boneyard (and thus quality denigration of the remaining parts, given ‘save-the-worst-for-last’), the no-recovery design flaw that likely extinguished the center engine at v2 after the left engine flipped over the wing and ignited the remaining left-wing infrastructure, that another MD-11 or MD-10 will ever fly again.
Here is a link to the NTSB’s preliminary analysis document:
https://www.ntsb.gov/Documents/Prelimiary%20Report%20DCA26MA024.pdf.
Sorry. It’s been moved since I downloaded it this morning.
I agree
Same point of failure as AA’s Chicago crash
https://avm-mag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/pylon-to-wing-attachment.png.webp
They were already being phased out for the reasons you specified, plus the fact that they’re less efficient. There’s a ton of 757’s and 767’s out there that are leaving passenger service and are being converted to freighters. Even with the conversion costs, they’re relatively cheap. And they’re more efficient than the MD-11.
CC
What a great idea!’🤨
CC
Right? But UPS has slow-walked a made-order migration to 7*7s, to milk their remaining two-dozen-plus MD-11s until something like this very thing happened. Sad.
Some good photos of failed aft lug
What caused the UPS plane crash?
+++++++++++
Very close to the same area, within inches, but different. 191 had the same bearing lugs from the wing mount pushing vertically into the pylon structure causing deformation and a crack initiation point. This ultimately grew into a 10" long crack in the pylon structure which let loose on the final takeoff. UPS failure appears to be in the circular cross section that supports the spherical bearing.
The 191 failure could happen on a new plane / structure that was mishandled ONCE by improper maintenance. Once the crack was initiated, it was a matter of time. 191 crashed 2 months after the deadly maintenance procedure. UPS failure is too early to tell true root cause.
I'm not being a smart ass. The failures are different.
AA 191 had a crack where the red dashed line is shown. May have been on the front side of the bearing.
Pylon aft bulkhead attach point failed, same as AA crash.
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