LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In response to a tragic accident at UPS’s global aviation hub in Kentucky, both UPS and FedEx have decided to ground their McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft fleets. This move is being made “out of an abundance of caution,” according to company statements.
The incident occurred on Tuesday at UPS Worldport in Louisville, resulting in the loss of 14 lives, which included the three pilots aboard the MD-11 en route to Honolulu.
The MD-11 models constitute approximately 9% of UPS’s airline fleet and 4% of FedEx’s fleet, as noted by both companies.
UPS emphasized their proactive stance, stating, “We made this decision proactively at the recommendation of the aircraft manufacturer. The safety of our employees and the communities we serve is our utmost priority,” in a statement released late Friday.
Similarly, FedEx communicated via email that it will also ground its MD-11 aircraft to conduct “a thorough safety review based on the manufacturer’s recommendation.”
Boeing, which acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press regarding the rationale behind this recommendation.
Western Global Airlines is the only other U.S. cargo airline that flies MD-11s, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. The airline has 16 MD-11s in its fleet but 12 of them have already been put in storage. The company did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment outside of business hours early Saturday.
Boeing announced in 1998 that it would be phasing out its MD-11 jetliner production, with final deliveries due in 2000.
The UPS cargo plane, built in 1991, was nearly airborne Tuesday when a bell sounded in the cockpit, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said earlier Friday. For the next 25 seconds, the bell rang and the pilots tried to control the aircraft as it barely lifted off the runway, its left wing ablaze and missing an engine, and then plowed into the ground in a spectacular fireball.
The cockpit voice recorder captured the bell, which sounded about 37 seconds after the crew called for takeoff thrust, Inman said. There are different types of alarms with varying meanings, he said, and investigators haven’t determined why the bell rang, though they know the left wing was burning and the engine on that side had detached.
Inman said it would be months before a transcript of the cockpit recording is made public as part of that investigation process.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said the bell likely was signaling the engine fire.
“It occurred at a point in the takeoff where they were likely past their decision speed to abort the takeoff,” Guzzetti told The Associated Press after Inman’s news conference. “They were likely past their critical decision speed to remain on the runway and stop safely. … They’ll need to thoroughly investigate the options the crew may or may not have had.”
Dramatic video captured the aircraft crashing into businesses and erupting in a fireball. Footage from phones, cars and security cameras has given investigators evidence of what happened from many different angles.
Flight records suggest the UPS MD-11 that crashed underwent maintenance while it was on the ground in San Antonio for more than a month until mid-October. It is not clear what work was done.
The UPS package handling facility in Louisville is the company’s largest. The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300 flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
UPS Worldport operations resumed Wednesday night with its Next Day Air, or night sort, operation, spokesperson Jim Mayer said.
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Golden reported from Seattle.
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