Posted on 11/08/2025 3:37:09 AM PST by Java4Jay
UPS and FedEx said they are grounding their fleets of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 planes “out of an abundance of caution” following a deadly crash at the UPS global aviation hub in Kentucky. MD-11 aircrafts make up about 9% of of the UPS airline fleet and 4% of the FedEx fleet, the companies said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wishtv.com ...
More fallout from the Schmuck Schumer Shutdown.
The DC-10 was on my no-fly list.
The fork lifts put huge stresses on the engine mounts and pylons if the fork lift mishandled, which is very easy to do
A number of engine mounts and pylons have been found to have extensive cracking due to the use of the fork lifts so this is a fork lift problem, not an MD-11 issue.
“they substituted the use of a fork lift to cut costs.“
I seem to recall a forklift being implicated in a crash many years ago. Can’t remember the details.
What with the reduced flights from Schumer’s shutdown, I suspect these groundings will have no practical additional effect on deliveries.
At present, it is looking like perhaps engine #1 blew, and then “detached” from the plane. The mounts ARE designed for it to break free under severe stress. Unfortunately smoke and debris appear to have been ingested into the rear engine, causing a compressor stall. The pilots never had a chance. :-(
It is ironic that the initial impact seems to be the plane sort of skipping off that big UPS building.
I have flown many flights on the DC-9 and the DC-10.
Zero stars. Would not recommend.
On the 9, the exit out the back of the plane required electric stair ‘let down’ and all we had to prevent the pax from storming the back to the plane to allow us to do this was A NYLON STRAP.
My wife said it felt like flying uphill.
Its competitor, the Lockheed L-1011 had only 2 accidents - one pilot error where they flew too low and landed in a swamp and the other when a microburst smashed it into the runway. Even though the L-1011 was more expensive, a lot of people would likely been alive if it had been the winner of that competition.
That was the DC-10 if I remember correctly. I do remember doing a history for the weights and CG’s for ALL those GE engines after the fact, Old School- paper and a calculator until a computer program could be put togehter to handle all the calculations do to different engine builds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_CF6
More like the Epstein Recess
Lockheed L-1011 Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashed a mile short of the DFW runway in 1985. They did not make it to the runway because the pilot chose to to fly through a thunderstorm and continue the landing This crash was pilot error.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191
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AA191 Chicago May 1979. Engine came off during takeoff. 273 people perished.
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The investigation showed that, in an attempt to save time, American Airlines' maintenance engineers had removed the engine and pylon from the wing as a single unit.
This contradicted McDonnell Douglas's guidance, which dictated that engineers should remove each component separately. American Airlines' method instead relied on supporting the engine and pylon assembly on a forklift. However, N110AA's left engine was damaged by being jammed against the wing after a slight loss of hydraulic pressure to the forklift during a shift change. This damage later developed into fatigue cracking, which worsened every time the plane took off or landed. This came to a head on May 25th, causing the engine separation and subsequent crash, which impacted the DC-10's reputation.
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Forklift allowed the partially installed engine to "drop down" a bit stressing structural items in a very improper way. This resulted in a component fatigue failure soon thereafter, which led to the engine separation and subsequent catastrophe.
The smoke trail begins well before the apparent location of the #1 engine detachment, and what’s left of that engine looks like part of it may have blown out. The mounts ARE designed to detach in the event of extreme stress. Debris is still being located and recorded: The pattern should tell the NTSB investigators a lot. Somewhere I read that they had to expand the search area. Not surprising: In the American Airlines Flight 383 incident (10/2016) engine pieces were found 2900 ft. to the sides of the runway.
I wonder if this crash will lead to more cameras along runways.
Possibly the best channel for info. on these incidents:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuhEWr8rmxY&t=613s
Thanks for that I knew there was a forklift story back there somewhere. The part above it shift change brought it all back for some reason. I think at the time I thought a job begun should be finished directly by whomever began it, for safety reasons. Can’t believe it was 1979 though.
I remember that accident. I worked in Dallas at the Health Science Center at the time. There were a lot of bodies brought to Parkland for autopsy, which was the next building over. They had a huge refrigerated semi container parked there to house the bodies. It was there for months.
Are you telling me that even after the 1979 crash in Chicago for that very reason, that they started using it again?
Yeah, I won’t fly in MD planes either.
-SB
Nobody uses the forklift on wing engines anymore. The engine is set in a cradle and they use pulleys to mount it. Nobody replaces pylon/engine in one piece.
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