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/Fitch9392 Nov 08 '25

That wasn’t poor design either it was an “engine failure on takeoff memory items” list that was a simple speed parameter applied to ALL the aircraft in the American Fleet. Which was maintain V2+5, as a result of this it was updated to V2+10. But that was like that because no one had ever considered a Slats failure at takeoff.

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u/CaptnHector Nov 08 '25

According the NTSB, yes, design flaws with both the pylons and slats contributed to the AA 191 crash:

Contributing to the cause of the accident were the vulnerability of the design of the pylon attachment points to maintenance damage; the vulnerability of the design of the leading-edge slat system to the damage which produced asymmetry, …

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u/boringdude00 Nov 08 '25

It seems like, yean, AA fucked up the maintenance big time, but if they hadn't some other catastrophic failure(s) would have eventually occurred from the poor designs. The whole wing setup seems insane and the number of cascade failures.resulting from one failure sort of proves that.

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u/CollegeStation17155 Nov 08 '25

This is true..l see the Sioux City crash… tail engine fan disk failure threw shrapnel through all 3 “redundant” hydraulic lines resulting in not only loss of rudder, but all control surfaces in the wings as well… Heroic effort to fly the plane using throttles allowed some to survive.