UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport • Hacker News Board

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#91

Post by positron26 » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 6:28 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #86

positron26 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> looks like the left wing was damaged by the fire The wings and aerodynamics don't really care if air or air with combustion are flowing around them. Roll is a consequence of the loss of control due to low speed and the yaw of the good engines. Speed up, rudder works, plane might maintain positive climb.

> The wings and aerodynamics don't really care if air or air with combustion are flowing around them. Not saying it's what happened here, but if the heat is intense enough to deform the wing / control surfaces, it matters.

For skin, a few seconds might be significant. For the spars, not nearly enough time to matter. It's also not at cruise speed slamming into a downdraft or anything. This is about a 1G loading. Negligible for a while. While the fire looks cool, there's a lot of free stream mixing in and the temps won't really get that high beyond the cowling.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#92

Post by rkomorn » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 6:35 AM UTC

aydyn wrote: post #37

numpad0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aviation regulations are updated in FAFO basis("written in blood" is the more common version).

Thats kind of insincere given how much safer flying is compared to driving a car. Modern flight is not dangerous, its just more spectacular when failures happen.

À lot of the reason why flying is so safe now is because of the culture of investigating every incident to make sure they won't happen again.

And, unfortunately, it's not that rare that the investigations to turn up things that were the result of corners being cut. I'm guessing that's what the "FAFO" comment points to.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#93

Post by hshdhdhehd » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:41 AM UTC

octaane wrote: post #51

cityofdelusion wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard procedure at V1 is commit to the takeoff and diagnose the problem in-air. Much of your comment is pure speculation until flight data recorders come back, we have no idea what the crew was thinking or what issues they were even aware of.

You're 100% right, and that's exactly what I'm getting at - they hit V1 and were aware they had a serious problem, but couldn't abort. As far as the rest of my comment - watch the videos that I linked.

Could they have not hit V1 but decided to take off anyway to minimise damage (i am guessing the reverse thrust might be impossible to stop?)

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#94

Post by hshdhdhehd » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:43 AM UTC

linehedonist wrote: post #82

FabHK wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do runways have some sort of barrier between them and the next "important" thing. It seems like that would be prudent both for cases like this Ha, Jeju Air Flight 2216 smashed into a barrier on the second landing attempt in Muan last year [0], and people commented "How could there be a barrier at the end of the runway, so obviously stupid, irresponsible", etc. Now a plane does not smash into a barrier at the end of…

One improvement is a bed of concrete at the end of the runway that will catch the wheels and slow an airplane down to a stop. Pretty much everyone agrees it’s a good idea but it’s not always possible due to space needs or cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_materials_arrestor_...

If it costs too much it is also a bad idea. Why? Because that money can be spent on other safety.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#95

Post by hshdhdhehd » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:44 AM UTC

fuzzythinker wrote: post #84

FabHK wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do runways have some sort of barrier between them and the next "important" thing. It seems like that would be prudent both for cases like this Ha, Jeju Air Flight 2216 smashed into a barrier on the second landing attempt in Muan last year [0], and people commented "How could there be a barrier at the end of the runway, so obviously stupid, irresponsible", etc. Now a plane does not smash into a barrier at the end of…

Or a ramp with "one-way teeth" that stops it with gravity and stops it from sliding back down with teeth.

The plane is fast and heavy.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#96

Post by hshdhdhehd » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:48 AM UTC

1970-01-01 wrote: post #44

[Off-topic] >The police department also urged those in the area to turn off any air intake systems as soon as possible due to the smoke in the area. Excellent edge-case for IFTTT thermostat. Localized air quality alert --> Intake offline.

LLM reading the news could do this too!

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#97

Post by hshdhdhehd » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:50 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #89

bmitc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying is only safer than driving a car when extremely regular and frequent maintenance is performed and performed correctly. The safety of flying goes down very fast when the maintenance effectiveness goes down. That is not true for cars.

Probably also worth pointing out that flying is only safer for Part 121 operators (airlines) -- private jets, sightseeing helicopters, skydiving operators, and general aviation are all more dangerous.

Is cargo in part 121?

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#98

Post by eternityforest » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:03 AM UTC

filleduchaos wrote: post #83

Jtsummers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The crew wouldn't have had any way to know that one of their engines had not simply failed, but was straight-up gone with their wing on fire to boot. I don't know about the MD-11 itself, but other aircraft from that time period have sensors to detect and report overheat and fire in various parts of the aircraft, including engines and wings.

Well, there's a very big difference between "Engine fire: some of the combustion chamber's heat and flame has breached containment" and, say, "Engine fire: the engine has exploded, catastrophically damaging your wing which is now visibly on fire". However, both things are reported in the cockpit as ENG FIRE. There's also a very big difference between "Engine failure: something has damaged or jammed enough components…