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UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

avherald.com

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Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is likely relevant https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance... TDLR 10-20 years ago, the US started allowing maintenance of domestic planes in foreign countries, outside the reach of the FAA’s inspections

> TDLR 10-20 years ago, the US started allowing maintenance of domestic planes in foreign countries, outside the reach of the FAA’s inspections Foreign Repair Stations date back to the 90s [1], the thing is they need to be supervised by an FAA Certified Mechanic. Inspection of these was already a hot issue in the early '00s... No one gave a fuck, it was all about saving costs for a very long time. The linked 2007 rep…

> IMHO, this is a perfect example why the government needs to regulate prices in safety-critical industries. The "race to the bottom" must be prevented - sorry, flying NYC-SFO for 70$, that's not sustainable.

This is nonsense. Commercial aviation is already ridiculously, insanely safe and has been for decades. Your proposed solution would not have done anything to prevent the one major accident in the past 15 years of commercial aviation in the US, which was caused by a military helicopter pilot violating an ATC restriction in complex airspace, not a maintenance issue.

What evidence do you have that "NYC-SFO for $70" is not sustainable? From March 2009 to December 2024 years in the US, the fatality rate in commercial aviation was 0.4 per passenger-light-year. That's nearly 15 years of operation with the foreign repair stations that you are accusing of putting profits before safety.

This is, like, the most ridiculous industry possible to demand more regulation of.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engine that fell off (!) had been worked on for two hours at Louisville, KY immediately before takeoff. Occam's Razor suggests that whatever they did right there is to blame.

Or whoever was working on it said "Wait, this plane isn't ready yet" and the people in charge said "we've waited long enough, get it on the runway".

This doesn't excuse the engineer as "just obeying orders". They are making a tradeoff between being ethical and being unemployed/unemployable, which understandably can be a very hard decision, but it's still their decision and they aren't guilt-free if something happens.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engine that fell off (!) had been worked on for two hours at Louisville, KY immediately before takeoff. Occam's Razor suggests that whatever they did right there is to blame.

Or whoever was working on it said "Wait, this plane isn't ready yet" and the people in charge said "we've waited long enough, get it on the runway".

MBA-driven decision instead of engineering decision.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#364
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NTSB is completely independent from the FAA, by design. The history of how that came to be is worth a read and answers your question better than I could. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Transportation_Safety...

Huh, wow, that actually did answer the question. Short version: the FAA did have this failing; the NTSB was created independently specifically to avoid that flaw. For the rest, he’s right, better to read it.

Yeah, wasn't meant to be a lazy comment on my part, but I started summarizing it a few times and found myself quoting more of the article than made sense.

One thing that stood out to me was just how long ago that separation was achieved and subsequently ensured.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News site - video obfuscated.

I would say it's easy to see the list of videos with no undue nonsense, the list is augmented as new footage is available, it contains more context on the accident (also augmented with subsequent information), and the local news deserves the traffic more than twitter

Linking to raw video directly is a more efficient use of time.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Reddit /r/aviation thread, there are people who spotted that specific plane at San Antonio International airport since it was apparently being serviced at a major service facility there. So yes to major service potentially at issue, and no to international work being at fault.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "a distinction without a difference"? The delta between "domestic" and "international" has basically been erased for all intents and purposes over the last 25 years. H1-B can and is used for Aviation Mechanics, not to mention that approximately 25 million of the official 60 million in the US that were not born American citizens have been granted citizenship in that period. You seem t…

How exactly is the USA turning into something other then the USA?

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#368

I didn’t realize the MD-11 was still in use. It has had a difficult time in passenger aviation. Looks really nasty. It seems to have come down in an industrial area, which will significantly reduce casualties. I can’t even imagine this, in a residential area.

I think it's fair to say the MD11 has had a difficult time, but I would caveat that it performs well for an aircraft of its vintage, and is still an acceptably safe aircraft. There have been something in the neighborhood of 2.4 million successful missions completed with the MD11, and around 12 hull losses with fatalities, around 14 hull losses total, over the 35 years the MD11 has been flying. Yes, it's below average…

According to this article from just a few weeks ago there were 56 active MD11 (well, 55 now), split almost evenly by Fedex and UPS, and scheduled to be replaced within next 5-7 years:

https://simpleflying.com/why-mcdonnell-dougls-md-11-wont-be-...

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#369
post #106

The 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…

This is likely relevant https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance... TDLR 10-20 years ago, the US started allowing maintenance of domestic planes in foreign countries, outside the reach of the FAA’s inspections

As someone who used to work at one of these foreign maintenance stations,

Firstly, fuck you.

Second, this shop consistently rated higher across all metrics, including those inside the US. Loss time injury rates measured in the millions of man hours.

Third, 80% of my job whilst there was to build software for QA and their rigourous on-going inspection reigeme that included yearly in person audits lasting weeks from FAA inspectors, EASA inspectors and every other country and airline this base overhauled.

Take your uninformed bs and hit the road. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about and insinuating that they're outside the reach of the FAA shows you know exactly 0 about the certification process that keeps millions of people safe on a daily basis.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#370
One AVHerald comment, by a tech who works on the same kind of engine that fell off, says,

> I pray they did not use a forklift for the installation of the engine, onwing.

Does anyone understand that? Why wouldn't you use a forklift? Why would that lead to an engine falling off? It seems like you'd need to support the 10,000 lbs engine somehow when reattaching it.

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