Sure looks like just a lubrication. Usually the metallurgy nerds can look at the fracture surfaces and beaching marks and estimate if the crack might have been visible, but may well not have been if as the report seems to insinuate it started in the bore of the holes.
I agree. I think most of us in the business (or formerly in the business) want to figure out *what* could have saved a situation and it's painful to not be able to find a solution for such an analytical group. When there is no lesson to learn in such a conundrum, it leaves us powerless. Again, this is based on nothing more than assumptions and incomplete information...so take that into consideration.
I mean when they figure out what caused what appears to be a spectacular fatigue failure of critical structure well before its life limit, there may be plenty of lessons to learn from that. Nothing that we as pilots can directly apply on a daily basis unfortunately
Add that to fact that the last "visual" inspection was in 2021; "A review of the inspection tasks for the left pylon aft mount found both a general visual inspection (GVI) and a detailed visual inspection of the left pylon aft mount, required by UPS's maintenance program at a 72-month interval, was last accomplished on October 28, 2021."
For sure, but I was more speaking to looking at this from the crew's perspective on this flight. There will certainly be lessons to be learned.
One of the oddly healthy behaviors I've noticed in aviation is that when there's an incident or accident, pilots blame the pilots, ATC blames ATC, and I can only assume mechanics look askance at the mechanical issues, because we all come from our own base of experience and we all want to solve the problem.
You shouldn't just to conclusions. Wait until Captain Steeeve's analysis is complete.
I'd imagine to accomplish the DVI of the aft pylon mount the engine and pylon would both require removal. You say these inspection programs are "abbreviated/compressed" and I disagree. The airplane had recently had some work performed but the interval for a "C" check had not been reached. Take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt because it's all hearsay and I have absolutely no evidence to prove its authenticity. A little bird told me the airplane was in San Antonio for some repairs, not inspections, for a fuel tank issue. I asked the little bird what fuel tanks they were working on but the little bird flew away and I never heard from him again. Where is most of the fuel on an MD-11 stored?
The only reason I brought up the C Check from what DE727UPS said:
And the compressed/modified nature of the C check is a just a general observation as this seems to be a trend across the industry...including much of it being offshored. This combined with the nature of corporations looking to pinch pennies...well, just an observation.
Are you just trying to stir the pot? You posted the airplane had been inspected in '21, what does "compressed/modified nature of the C check" mean? Are you saying folks are sending their jets overseas to get a "quick" C check? That might be happening but apparently UPS does not engage in that behavior because as far as I know San Antonio is still considered domestic.
I'm not a heavy jet guy, what do you consider heavy maintenance? In my world heavy maintenance is removing a stabilizer or a wing or landing gear, changing an engine or APU is just another day.
There is a significant amount of gyroscopic precession at rotation. It's one of the highest load periods that the engine mounts will see - Maximum fan speed/rotor speed and a relatively large pitch change. I would expect the engine to want to rotate the front section inboards.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that with all the warnings that #1 was setting off, there's probably a decent chance that a problem with #2 wouldn't have been noticed. From the "what would you have done" point of view, however, it wouldn't have mattered at that point.
