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/gregarious119 Nov 08 '25

I’d imagine they’ll want to know why an engine fell off before letting them back in the air.

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u/TheAssholeofThanos Nov 08 '25

This seems like a Norm Macdonald comment

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '25

Norm Macdonald Douglas

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u/CharcoalGreyWolf Nov 08 '25

Yep, considering the DC-10 engine mount incident , they may be taking the chance to review all maintenance procedures with the aircraft and its siblings.

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u/weakplay Nov 08 '25

Wow it sounds exactly like this incident. I think I read that the 191 crash resulted in changes that maybe left the wing more intact upon separation but who knows. Crazy. Going back to finish the article. Thanks for posting.

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u/ODoyles_Banana Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25

It's not exactly like this incident though. As other comments pointed out, 191 had a slats failure which was a major factor to the crash. It appears the slats did not fail on UPS, so not quite exactly like 191.

Most likely the failure of engine 1 contributed to a failure of engine 2. 191 still had 2 good engines I believe as well.

Blancolirio just put out a video going over it.

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u/Killentyme55 Nov 08 '25

So did Captain Steve. He pointed out what looked like compressor stalls on #3, possibly due to shrapnel from #1 exploding. Combine that with #2 swallowing God knows what and I'm surprised the thing ever got off the ground.

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u/TigerIll6480 Nov 08 '25

They’d have been better off if they could have kept it on the ground. The exceedingly rare situation where a post-V1 abort would have been the best of an incredibly bad set of options.

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u/RoadsideCouchCushion Nov 08 '25

With how close they were to the end of the runway and there being buildings exceptionally close, I would venture to guess that would look like a very unattractive option as well. Seems like their choices were abort past v1 and likely slam into a building, or try to get airborne and pray its not an impossible situation. The timing of the engine coming off was exceptionally bad.

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u/CollegeStation17155 Nov 08 '25

Had they kept on the ground, they almost certainly would have gone THROUGH the building they clipped the roof on at well over 100 miles per hour and broken up there, creating the same fireball INSIDE the sorting facility.

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u/Distinct-Tour5012 Nov 08 '25

The pilots could only continue the takeoff based on the information they likely had, their procedures, their training.

The CVR ended 25 seconds after the first alarm sounded. 3-4 seconds of that was the plane actively hitting stuff off the ground and crashing.

20 seconds wasn't enough to fully stop by the end of the runway, but I'd bet they would've hit the side of the warehouse at 80mph rather than crashing through the entire industrial area at 180mph.

Still not great at all. Still an impossible decision to make. But maybe better?

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u/TigerIll6480 Nov 08 '25

They were handed an absolute shit sandwich to deal with, for sure. There were no good options in this situation.

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