UPS MD-11 crash at SDF

About time. Would’ve expected this earlier just due to the nature of this accident and the amount of unknowns and why questions, with what has been both seen and the evidence left over. All of which cannot be yet answered for. Based on this, it’s absolute BS that a fleet grounding wasn’t done very shortly after the accident. Better late than never, but it may just be found that it was luck another accident didn’t occur. As IO / IIC, I would’ve been pushing for this first thing on this one.

Did UPS and FedEx ground their fleets before or after the Boeing advisory?

With an engine left resting on the side of runway, I’m surprised Boeing didn’t act immediately instead of increasing their liability. Have MD-11’s ever seen a Boeing MRO?

Boeing recommending D-checks on every MD-11 could be the final straw.

767 production was scheduled to end in 2027, it looks like new orders will keep the line open beyond 2027.
 
I keep getting questions from friends and family about this accident. All I can offer is an engine fell off during take-off and I have no idea why. Some folks think because you work in aviation you have the number to the red phone in the administrators office. I've been through this before just wondering how any others here handle it, if it goes on too long I just start making up nonsense and then hope to see my gibberish quoted somewhere. Happily I've never read my nonsense repeated anywhere, but I'll say very strange things like an alien fighter drone sacrificed itself by diving into the engine of a heavily laden cargo jet during take off. The phone gets real quiet or the text/email chain stops pretty quick. How do you folks deal with that aspect of our lives?
I say I don’t know and won’t know until the report comes out in a year or so….and by the way anyone you hear saying they know something, they don’t know either.
 
It took too long to ground the fleet.

When you have a smoking gun like an entire engine and pylon being left behind, you ground the fleet until you rule out a fleet-specific issue.
I could have sworn I heard in a NTSB briefing that the pylon was mostly still on the airplane?
 
It took too long to ground the fleet.

When you have a smoking gun like an entire engine and pylon being left behind, you ground the fleet until you rule out a fleet-specific issue.
I've never worked in the 121 world, so I don't know how taking a stand works out depending on where you are in your career.
Upthread someone had posted they would fly or were flying the platform with confidence after this happened.

I'm not in a position where it matters if I work or not, I simply would not have accepted any flights until this is furthur understood.
and now it seems that is where it has gone.

What would happen if someone just said, "No, your getting this wrong right now?"
I mean, grounded now supports that resistance.
 
I mean it took two large passenger hull losses for them to care about the unairworthy condition on the MAX so
Exactly. I think the dramatic video is jarring and spikes peoples emotions, rightfully so. However. MH370 disappeared without a hint of what might have happened. Did the worldwide 777 fleet get grounded, I don't recall that. Fact is now within minutes we can see our friends die in HD and our neighbors are google experts. I'm not saying the timing of the fleet being grounded was appropriate or not.
I've never worked in the 121 world, so I don't know how taking a stand works out depending on where you are in your career.
Upthread someone had posted they would fly or were flying the platform with confidence after this happened.

I'm not in a position where it matters if I work or not, I simply would not have accepted any flights until this is furthur understood.
and now it seems that is where it has gone.

What would happen if someone just said, "No, your getting this wrong right now?"
I mean, grounded now supports that resistance.
To this, say it's a 2 day grounding and they inspected the fleet. Are we ok then to accept aircraft or should we still take a stand and say no i don't trust it? At a certain point you need to trust the system. I don't know how to maintain a MD11 but i assume and expect that others below wing do and they do their jobs well. If i didn't, i would find another line of work.
 
Exactly. I think the dramatic video is jarring and spikes peoples emotions, rightfully so. However. MH370 disappeared without a hint of what might have happened. Did the worldwide 777 fleet get grounded, I don't recall that. Fact is now within minutes we can see our friends die in HD and our neighbors are google experts. I'm not saying the timing of the fleet being grounded was appropriate or not.

Different scenario, with the 777, there was no evidence of any kind of aircraft fault, or evidence at all. What would there be a grounding for? To look for what specifically? There has to be something specific to look for or inspect, to prompt a grounding.

Regardless of any video or not, it’s the evidence that prompts a grounding. DC-10s were temp grounded after AA191, and there was no video in that accident, just a short series of distant photos. But it was the evidence of what had occurred with the aircraft itself that could not be accounted for, and that could be a wider problem with the fleet, that prompted a temp grounding.
 
I'm not in a position where it matters if I work or not, I simply would not have accepted any flights until this is furthur understood.
and now it seems that is where it has gone.

What would happen if someone just said, "No, your getting this wrong right now?"
I mean, grounded now supports that resistance.
Depends on how you handled it. You could call in sick. That could buy you a couple weeks. If you blatently articulated why you were witholding services, it would be coded as a refusal to fly. Probably going to get you fired if you persist with that past flight. 121's are usually union and a common phrase is "my union speaks for me". Problem is, there is this thing called the Railway Labor Act (that strangly applies to airline unions). The company can sue the bejesus out of a union that encourages withholding service. Ask American. Unions have to be very careful about how they word things.
 
Exactly. I think the dramatic video is jarring and spikes peoples emotions, rightfully so. However. MH370 disappeared without a hint of what might have happened. Did the worldwide 777 fleet get grounded, I don't recall that. Fact is now within minutes we can see our friends die in HD and our neighbors are google experts. I'm not saying the timing of the fleet being grounded was appropriate or not.

To this, say it's a 2 day grounding and they inspected the fleet. Are we ok then to accept aircraft or should we still take a stand and say no i don't trust it? At a certain point you need to trust the system. I don't know how to maintain a MD11 but i assume and expect that others below wing do and they do their jobs well. If i didn't, i would find another line of work.
Of course I agree with that,
My frame of reference was I thought they kept flying until a (recent) grounding was referenced that I responded to?
I had no knowledge a grounding and inspection was past tense.

Maybe it's in the thread and I missed it
 
I’m surprised at it not having been at the behest of UPS. But depending on their management culture, which I have no first hand experience with, perhaps that surprise is misplaced.
Management culture? Recent post at another forum suggested they wanted to wait until the weekend when the jets are parked anyways to do a NDI inspection of the pylon attach hardware. Don't want to disrupt the system during the week.
 
I’m surprised at it not having been at the behest of UPS. But depending on their management culture, which I have no first hand experience with, perhaps that surprise is misplaced.
This! Maybe it’s the anger stage speaking and maybe it’s not but this is one I’ll never forget. They shouldn’t have been forced to do the right thing when an engine fell off an airplane (let that sink in) that subsequently crashed and killed multiple people.

But like someone else mentioned it’s not surprising. Airbus offered to updated the A300 EGPWS and apparently the downtime (minimal BTW) was a consideration in that decision. Look at what happened there…
 
Management culture? Recent post at another forum suggested they wanted to wait until the weekend when the jets are parked anyways to do a NDI inspection of the pylon attach hardware. Don't want to disrupt the system during the week.

Well, if that’s true, that’s not good.
 
This! Maybe it’s the anger stage speaking and maybe it’s not but this is one I’ll never forget. They shouldn’t have been forced to do the right thing when an engine fell off an airplane (let that sink in) that subsequently crashed and killed multiple people.

But like someone else mentioned it’s not surprising. Airbus offered to updated the A300 EGPWS and apparently the downtime (minimal BTW) was a consideration in that decision. Look at what happened there…

Agreed.

As it comes to Boeing calling for the grounding, maybe they learned from the MAX debacle and didn’t want a series of two fatal crashes back to back, again? Or, maybe they want an excuse to rid the MD-11. I don’t know.

But yes, UPS management, if there was any safety mindset there, should’ve initiated a grounding based on the evidence seen in this one, namely an engine sitting on the runway and the wreckage of their aircraft beyond it.
 
You know I’m watching the NTSB briefings, and maybe it’s just me but I feel like a key piece of information that they know they aren’t telling us. Im going to generously say reporters are not experts so they don’t know to ask, although how much research would this take. The piece of information Inwoukd like to hear is did the engine fall off after or before V1. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, that’s not at all where I’m going with this, I just think based on the information they have they would know this by now.
I also think they know what the bell was. I mean I’m only a CRJ pilot, but I feel like it wouldn’t be that hard to have an MD-11 pilot listen and say hey what’s that bell.
And before anyone gets mad I’m not saying the investigators are doing a bad job or intentionally concealing stuff. They may have very god reasons for not releasing these details. I’m merely posting what I thought of when I heard the briefings.
 
I mean it took two large passenger hull losses for them to care about the unairworthy condition on the MAX so

Pepperidge Farns remembers a time when we actually lost 2 737s, one at COS, the other at PIT. The official reports at the time were literally undetermined. And several years later an Eastwind 737 nearly kicked, luckily the rudder jam fixed itself and the crew landed safely. Using this 737, the NTSB pieced together probable causes.

…and we never grounded anything.
 
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