This is probably the worst way a plane could go down in terms of damage caused. Maximum effect in term of damage. Cargo plane apparently reached V1 (go/no go speed) on the runway, and suffered a catastrophic engine failure. They passed V1, so they knew they were going down. Engine was shedding large debris, including the housing (!!!) which is a shrapnel shield.
They were on fire just as they reached V1.
Plane was fully loaded with 38,000 LB of fuel for 12 hour flight to hawaii. Worst case scenario.
Pilots did the heroic thing - they tried to take off instead at 160 MPH to minimize collateral damage (highway and warehouses at the end of the runway) and crash and die somewhere else, instead of go beyond the runway at that speed. Accelerating a fully loaded jet plane at ground level beyond the runway has obvious consequences. They had one choice.
Instead, they clipped the UPS factory because they were so low, they tried to clear it but did not. Plane then hit the ground port wing down, shearing it off entirely, smearing a fireball of jet fuel across half a mile (not an exaggeration) before the plane flipped. Crew were likely dead by before this, footage shows the cockpit being slammed into the ground like a mousetrap by the flip once the port wing was gone and gravity took the starboard wing over.
Physics took over. Plane flipped and rolled upon loss of port wing, smearing a rolling fireball of the remaining fuel load from the starboard wing for another half a mile.
Louisville is now a firestorm as a result.
Respect to the flight crew; rest in peace, they made the best they could out of a really shitty scenario. They flew it all the way down.
>> highway and warehouses at the end of the runway
It's astonishing that this is a thing. Why aren't we building airports with enough space for a plane to remain on the ground and have plenty of room to decelerate in this situation? I can understand why it can't be retro fitted to existing airports but is it a scenario that's considered at new airports? Just seems like such an absolutely basic safety step.
Work place related accidents always have a certain tragedy to them. Still remember when in the industrial park, my employer is located in, tanks belonging to a trash incinerator for special chemical waste exploded, taking several people with it.
It was around 250k gallons of fuel. Our CAD notes on the initial dispatch said 250k, one press briefing said 280k, and then it was changed to 220k which I think is the actual number.
I saw Penske Truck Leasing trailers on fire at Kentucky Truck on WHAS"s helicopter footage from last night. 15 years ago, I'd be there once a week doing parts runs from the PTL branch off Newburg. The security cam footage of the plane rolling from Kentucky Truck was insane. Thanks for working the scene. That smoke looked incredibly toxic.
"Pilots did the heroic thing - they tried to take off instead at 160 MPH to minimize collateral damage (highway and warehouses at the end of the runway) and crash and die somewhere else"
No, they were most likely NOT trying to be heores, its simply the standard thing to do. An aircraft is supposed to be able to take off with one engine inop, and at this speed the expected behaviour is to continue takeoff because that is what has been deemed safest.
There is always a grey area where the decision could go either way, stop or lift off and in this case it looks to me that trying to stop might have been better. But that is literally impossible to diagnose during the few seconds they had.
This is probably the worst way a plane could go down. Maximum effect in term of damage. Cargo plane apparently reached V1 (go/no go speed) on the runway, and suffered a catastrophic engine failure. They passed V1, so they knew they were going down. Engine was shedding large debris, including the housing (!!!) which is a shrapnel shield.
They were on fire just as they reached V1.
Plane was fully loaded with 38,000 LB of fuel for 12 hour flight to hawaii. Worst case scenario.
Pilots did the heroic thing - they tried to take off instead of accelerate past the runway at ground level at 160 MPH to minimize collateral damage (highway and warehouses at the end of the runway) and crash and die somewhere else.
Instead, they clipped the UPS factory because they were so low, they tried to clear it but did not. Plane then hit the ground port wing down, shearing it off entirely, smearing a fireball of jet fuel across half a mile (not an exaggeration) before the plane flipped. Crew were likely dead by then, footage shows the cockpit being slammed into the ground by the flip once the port wing was gone and gravity took the starboard wing over.
Plane flipped, continued to smear half of the fuel load for another half a mile.
Another DC-10/MD-11 crash.
Does UPS perform their own engine maintenance, or do they outsource the work?
What is the effect of the recent layoff of 40,000 and the current cost-cutting project?
The last MD-11 crash with deaths was in 2009 and the last DC-10 kerfuffle was when their unapproved replacement parts fell on the runway and killed the Concorde. I wonder if flight 232 gave them a bad name - everybody seems to know that accident. Looks like have a good record otherwise.
that the engine tore off meakes the likelyhood of significant damage to critical flight control systems quite high, any such damage would have been asymetric and counteracting forces inducing a roll may have been impossible.
you know they tried
> Ground observers reported the aircraft had been delayed for about two hours for work on the left hand engine (engine #1), the engine #1 separated during the takeoff run, the center engine emitted streaks of flames, the aircraft impacted a UPS warehouse and ploughed through other facilities before coming to rest in a large plume of fire and smoke.
I didn’t realize the MD-11 was still in use. It has had a difficult time in passenger aviation.
Looks really nasty. It seems to have come down in an industrial area, which will significantly reduce casualties. I can’t even imagine this, in a residential area.
Early reports suggest the left engine separated during takeoff after maintenance work earlier that day. It’s a tragic reminder of how even small mechanical issues can turn catastrophic in seconds. Hope the NTSB can clarify what went wrong to prevent future accidents.
From wikipedia, Boeing stopped producing MD-11 since 2,000. Does that mean any MD-11 flying is at least 25 years old? I know 25-year is not particularly old for aircrafts, but MD-11 is not exactly reliable. Is there any reason UPS is flying these planes?
Every time I board a plane, I think what a crazy thing I am doing, but then I remember that I could be safe and snug in my house and still be in a plane crash.
Relative of mine is a real estate agent in the Louisville area. This year she sold two homes to two UPS pilots. One of them, his first day was yesterday. The day of the crash. He was bumped from that very flight.
the fact that stuff like this still happens (despite the relatively low probability/ incident rate) is truly mind boggling. the acceptability threshold for this need to be lower
This really reminded me of a colleague who had a part-time night job flying cancelled checks from Centennial Airport (KAPA, south of Denver) to SLC. A bunch of us went out to lunch on a Friday in December 2005. That night, on his return to KAPA, he crashed his Mitsubishi MU-2 about a mile short of the runway. He and his co-pilot were gone, just like that. On Monday you could see the wreckage and cleanup from our office which was near the airport. It was so surreal.
It does make me wonder: why are aircraft takeoffs and landings not recorded more often, with higher quality cameras and more angles? If I can watch an NFL replay in 4k a few seconds after the ball is snapped, why not record (and overwrite) all flights that take off and land at every airport?
Like a dash cam, they can save the footage only if there is a problem. Surely that would be much better than splicing together many third party camera recordings.
> If I can watch an NFL replay in 4k a few seconds after the ball is snapped, why not record (and overwrite) all flights that take off and land at every airport?
An NFL game has a ton of cameras, a ton of camera operators, those fancy cameras on wire things, an onsite editing crew, and an audience.
To get good recordings, you'd need to invest a lot of time and money, and very few of the recordings would ever be watched. Doesn't seem worth the investment given third party recording seem to turn up quite often and video isn't terribly necessary for the investigation.
Left cam, right cam, runway end, and runway start cams as a minimum or, a single insta360 cam halfway along.
'Crew' not required.
'Audience' would be the ntsb.
Cost? Cents on the price of having a plane/ being a passenger.
It doesn't seem to be such a terrible idea, though i do stand to be corrected.
This is such a commonsense thought that my only guess can be because it would be a liability to insurance/airline carriers to have such helpful footage.
If Flock is going to retain footage indefinitely, why not the FAA/airport, to?
One AVHerald comment, by a tech who works on the same kind of engine that fell off, says,
> I pray they did not use a forklift for the installation of the engine, onwing.
Does anyone understand that? Why wouldn't you use a forklift? Why would that lead to an engine falling off? It seems like you'd need to support the 10,000 lbs engine somehow when reattaching it.
> Ground observers reported the aircraft had been delayed for about two hours for work on the left hand engine (engine #1), the engine #1 separated during the takeoff run
Some people are gonna have to live with that for the rest of their lives. Not putting blame on humans here, but hopefully this triggers a tightening of procedures, as these kind of tragedies tend to.
46 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 78.1 ms ] threadhttps://x.com/BNONews/status/1985845907191889930
https://xcancel.com/BNONews/status/1985845907191889930
Edit: just the mp4 https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1985845862409334784/pu/...
There is an incredible amount of ground damage! Just wow, this is very bad https://files.catbox.moe/3303ob.jpg
They were on fire just as they reached V1.
Plane was fully loaded with 38,000 LB of fuel for 12 hour flight to hawaii. Worst case scenario.
Pilots did the heroic thing - they tried to take off instead at 160 MPH to minimize collateral damage (highway and warehouses at the end of the runway) and crash and die somewhere else, instead of go beyond the runway at that speed. Accelerating a fully loaded jet plane at ground level beyond the runway has obvious consequences. They had one choice.
Instead, they clipped the UPS factory because they were so low, they tried to clear it but did not. Plane then hit the ground port wing down, shearing it off entirely, smearing a fireball of jet fuel across half a mile (not an exaggeration) before the plane flipped. Crew were likely dead by before this, footage shows the cockpit being slammed into the ground like a mousetrap by the flip once the port wing was gone and gravity took the starboard wing over.
Physics took over. Plane flipped and rolled upon loss of port wing, smearing a rolling fireball of the remaining fuel load from the starboard wing for another half a mile.
Louisville is now a firestorm as a result.
Respect to the flight crew; rest in peace, they made the best they could out of a really shitty scenario. They flew it all the way down.
Footage:
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1985845987684855969?s=46
https://x.com/faytuksnetwork/status/1985849267152699741?s=46
https://x.com/faytuksnetwork/status/1985848132500885995?s=46
https://x.com/faytuksnetwork/status/1985843126934614297?s=46
It's astonishing that this is a thing. Why aren't we building airports with enough space for a plane to remain on the ground and have plenty of room to decelerate in this situation? I can understand why it can't be retro fitted to existing airports but is it a scenario that's considered at new airports? Just seems like such an absolutely basic safety step.
Work place related accidents always have a certain tragedy to them. Still remember when in the industrial park, my employer is located in, tanks belonging to a trash incinerator for special chemical waste exploded, taking several people with it.
Let's leave that word to mean what it actually means. Louisville experienced a serious fire.
Grade A Auto Parts on Melton Ave was the initial damaged building. I don't have the name of the chemical place handy.
Med Command setup at River City Metals.
No, they were most likely NOT trying to be heores, its simply the standard thing to do. An aircraft is supposed to be able to take off with one engine inop, and at this speed the expected behaviour is to continue takeoff because that is what has been deemed safest.
There is always a grey area where the decision could go either way, stop or lift off and in this case it looks to me that trying to stop might have been better. But that is literally impossible to diagnose during the few seconds they had.
>They had one choice.
>Physics took over.
>Louisville is now a firestorm as a result.
Incredible writing.
They were on fire just as they reached V1.
Plane was fully loaded with 38,000 LB of fuel for 12 hour flight to hawaii. Worst case scenario.
Pilots did the heroic thing - they tried to take off instead of accelerate past the runway at ground level at 160 MPH to minimize collateral damage (highway and warehouses at the end of the runway) and crash and die somewhere else.
Instead, they clipped the UPS factory because they were so low, they tried to clear it but did not. Plane then hit the ground port wing down, shearing it off entirely, smearing a fireball of jet fuel across half a mile (not an exaggeration) before the plane flipped. Crew were likely dead by then, footage shows the cockpit being slammed into the ground by the flip once the port wing was gone and gravity took the starboard wing over.
Plane flipped, continued to smear half of the fuel load for another half a mile.
Louisville is now a firestorm as a result.
Footage:
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1985845987684855969?s=46
https://x.com/faytuksnetwork/status/1985849267152699741?s=46
https://x.com/faytuksnetwork/status/1985848132500885995?s=46
https://x.com/faytuksnetwork/status/1985843126934614297?s=46
Excellent edge-case for IFTTT thermostat. Localized air quality alert --> Intake offline.
> Ground observers reported the aircraft had been delayed for about two hours for work on the left hand engine (engine #1), the engine #1 separated during the takeoff run, the center engine emitted streaks of flames, the aircraft impacted a UPS warehouse and ploughed through other facilities before coming to rest in a large plume of fire and smoke.
Looks really nasty. It seems to have come down in an industrial area, which will significantly reduce casualties. I can’t even imagine this, in a residential area.
It seems like it happened fairly late in the sequence. Not sure how much of a difference it would have made.
Every time I board a plane, I think what a crazy thing I am doing, but then I remember that I could be safe and snug in my house and still be in a plane crash.
Like a dash cam, they can save the footage only if there is a problem. Surely that would be much better than splicing together many third party camera recordings.
An NFL game has a ton of cameras, a ton of camera operators, those fancy cameras on wire things, an onsite editing crew, and an audience.
To get good recordings, you'd need to invest a lot of time and money, and very few of the recordings would ever be watched. Doesn't seem worth the investment given third party recording seem to turn up quite often and video isn't terribly necessary for the investigation.
It doesn't seem to be such a terrible idea, though i do stand to be corrected.
If Flock is going to retain footage indefinitely, why not the FAA/airport, to?
If you have a long runway and a long runout, you have a much higher V1 than a short runway with tall clearance right at the end, right?
> I pray they did not use a forklift for the installation of the engine, onwing.
Does anyone understand that? Why wouldn't you use a forklift? Why would that lead to an engine falling off? It seems like you'd need to support the 10,000 lbs engine somehow when reattaching it.
Some people are gonna have to live with that for the rest of their lives. Not putting blame on humans here, but hopefully this triggers a tightening of procedures, as these kind of tragedies tend to.