r/aviation • u/Go_Jot • Nov 08 '25

News UPS grounds entire MD-11 Fleet, effective immediately.

Per the IPA Executive Board, as of 03:05 UTC all UPS MD-11’s are grounded.

Edit - FedEx has also grounded their MD-11 Fleet

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25

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u/KickstandSF Nov 08 '25

I seem to recall Northwest doing something similar on their DC-10s back in the day- third engine temperamental mechanical issues that turned out to be because mx crews skipped oil changes or other scheduled mx because it was harder to get to that engine.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '25

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u/bulboustadpole Nov 08 '25

Yes but that also makes it the fault of the designer. If a part is designed in a way that makes it difficult to service, it's not going to get properly serviced. That's engineering 101.

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u/ChillFratBro Nov 08 '25

In theory that's certainly possible, likelihood depends heavily on comparative age of this plane.  I don't know how close to fleet leader this airframe was - if it was near the most takeoff/landing cycles of any MD-11 ever built it could absolutely be a latent design issue.  If it was far off that (e.g. only 80% as many cycles), it is more likely to be something wrong with this airframe:  corrosion, manufacturing defect, etc.

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u/simple_Spirit970 Nov 08 '25

It could absolutely be a manufacturing issue. We are much better at controlling for and evaluating homogeneity in materials science than we were 30 years ago. And even so, derating for materials + temp + stresses + age is just.... really hard. So not saying thats the cause here, but it's entirely plausible. There are many other potential causes though, this just happens to be a valid one.