Early reports suggest the left engine separated during takeoff after maintenance work earlier that day. It’s a tragic reminder of how even small mechanical issues can turn catastrophic in seconds. Hope the NTSB can clarify what went wrong to prevent future accidents.
UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
151–160 of 469 posts
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
The damage on the ground is scary to look at. I think the only silver lining here is that it was "just" a sparser industrial area and there weren't any homes. I'm really curious about what the investigation will reveal in a few months. This doesn't look like a "regular" engine fire from a bird strike or so, you would normally expect the flames to come out the back and not over the wing. And at least in theory the MD-…
Zoning guidance generally prohibits land use near an airport that has a high density of people, precisely to limit casualties during an event like this. Industrial would be permitted while residential and commercial use is not. Scarily there are communities that have ignored such logic and permitted dense residential development right next to an airport.
Probably also due to noise.
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Having cameras pointed at the engines/wings like rearview mirrors would be helpful. Helpful in what way? What are the pilots going to do with the information?
They won't have to rely on cabin crew description of what they see over the wings or have to send one of the pilots to take a look (see UA1175).
its super weird to me this isn't a thing, and there's resistence to the idea. I mean, if they are already masters at glacing at 100000 differnent indicators and warning messages etc. and processing them at super speeds (they really do!) then i'd say a monitor with a bunch of buttons below it to switch feeds (maybe a little more elaborate, but not tooo...) would be helpful.
the problem might be getting trained and experienced pilots to adjust to it since they are already in a certain flow of habits and skills to apply in their job, but new pilots surely could learn it as they aren't so set on their ways yet and have the opportunity to build this new data into their skillset / habits.
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean the engine is laying on the side of the runway and the plane is seen on fire trying to take off; I'm going to go out on a limb and say maintenance was somehow involved. Well-maintained planes don't do that.
There has been at least one crash due to manufacturing defects that no one knew about beforehand or could therefore diagnose. We will find out what happened in about a year once the investigation is complete.
Phase of flight is a major contributor to accident statistics with take-off and landing much more often associated with accidents than the rest of the flight.
Take-off asks a lot from the engines, and one nasty bit about manufacturing defects is that they can take a while to show up, but the bulk of them usually surfaces when the aircraft are relatively new.
But: this plane was delayed before the flight due to maintenance on engine #1, so that's the first place where I would start looking for issues without any kind of judgment beforehand on what you would expect to find. And that's the main issue with that comment, it assumes a conclusion, that's not how these investigations work because then you might miss the actual cause. And given how critical these machines are it doesn't take much. All it takes is a single, tiny mistake.
The really bad luck here is that it seems as though the failure of engine #1 took the center engine right along with it. That's one of the issues with that particular design, if you have debris from one of the forward engines it could easily get ingested by the rear mounted one.
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The damage on the ground is scary to look at. I think the only silver lining here is that it was "just" a sparser industrial area and there weren't any homes. I'm really curious about what the investigation will reveal in a few months. This doesn't look like a "regular" engine fire from a bird strike or so, you would normally expect the flames to come out the back and not over the wing. And at least in theory the MD-…
Zoning guidance generally prohibits land use near an airport that has a high density of people, precisely to limit casualties during an event like this. Industrial would be permitted while residential and commercial use is not. Scarily there are communities that have ignored such logic and permitted dense residential development right next to an airport.
You can always come up with some pretext to justify things by ignoring the other side of the equation.
How many lives do the man hours spent commuting, or toiling away to afford higher rents waste?
IDK how the math pencils out, but an attempt ought to be made before drawing conclusions.
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> There's also a very big difference between "Engine failure: something has damaged or jammed enough components that the turbines are no longer spinning fast enough to produce thrust or drive the generators" and "Engine failure: the engine is no longer attached to the aircraft, which is why it is no longer producing thrust". However, both things are reported in the cockpit as ENG FAIL. What is the difference?
>What is the difference?
Wanting to be in the air vs wanting to over-run the end of the runway.
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#157Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#158The AVHerald is usually the best source for these things, rather than MSM: https://avherald.com/h?article=52f5748f&opt=0 > Ground observers reported the aircraft had been delayed for about two hours for work on the left hand engine (engine #1), the engine #1 separated during the takeoff run, the center engine emitted streaks of flames, the aircraft impacted a UPS warehouse and ploughed through other facilities before…
We updated it, thanks. (Original URL was https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-plane-crash-louisville-kent...).
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zoning guidance generally prohibits land use near an airport that has a high density of people, precisely to limit casualties during an event like this. Industrial would be permitted while residential and commercial use is not. Scarily there are communities that have ignored such logic and permitted dense residential development right next to an airport.
> Zoning guidance generally prohibits land use near an airport that has a high density of people Queens, NY has entered the chat…
Some of the larger townships in Cape Town are right in the flight path too. Not many white people there either.
Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport
#160The AVHerald is usually the best source for these things, rather than MSM: https://avherald.com/h?article=52f5748f&opt=0 > Ground observers reported the aircraft had been delayed for about two hours for work on the left hand engine (engine #1), the engine #1 separated during the takeoff run, the center engine emitted streaks of flames, the aircraft impacted a UPS warehouse and ploughed through other facilities before…
Oh woah, very insightful discussion thread you found there. So the tl'dr is: the leading very preliminary theory is that the MD-11's left engine fell off the wing just like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191 (a DC-10, the immediate predecessor of the MD-11) which was caused by maintenance errors weakening the pylon structure holding the engine.
The parallels with AA Flight 191 are striking. In THAT accident it was found [1]:
1) improper maintenance—American Airlines had used a forklift shortcut to remove the engine and pylon together, rather than following McDonnell Douglas’s prescribed method
2) The detachment tore away part of the wing’s leading edge, rupturing hydraulic lines and severing electrical power to key systems, including the slat-position indicator and stall warning (stick shaker).
3) The pilots followed the standard engine-out procedure and reduced airspeed to V₂, which caused the aircraft to stall and roll uncontrollably left. This procedure was later found out to be incorrect.
Defective maintenance practices, inadequate oversight, vulnerabilities in DC-10 design, and unsafe training procedures combined to cause the crash, killing all 273 people on board and leading to sweeping reforms in airline maintenance and certification standards.