The reason I love it is because I have been working and flying on it for 14 years and I’m still here. I don’t care what you’ve previously stated and how many times, I’m just tired of reading it. Interesting that you bring up the Swissair incident too, that was obviously the MD-11’s fault, being a fault with an aftermarket IFE system and the crews decision to stay in the air to dump fuel rather than get it on the ground, albeit overweight. I’m sure you are a journo.

6lightmech: And you dodged the quesion again. Is there a point at which grounding is justified? That was the last sentence of my post,did u not read that far?

Scorsch: thanks 4 the info on the Lufthansa pilots. I thought ALL airline pilots bid by seniority. LH is a little different though, witness their ETOPS reticience. There is already a lot of training and awareness of the MD-11 quirks, but the incidents seem to keep happening. Granted, different scenario in this latest incident.

Sorry, I normally trip-out after the first sentence. Not question dodging. I love the MD-11 and NO, I do not think a grounding is justified. Anytime a 737/A320 has an accident I don’t think that justifies a grounding either. Obviously by your authoritive posting you already know what the cause of the LH hull loss was so why don’t you tell us (of course, you could always wait for the official report)

Nothing really changes the fact that the MD-11 has a HORRIBLE safety record, the worst of any modern airplane, and worse than many of the previous generation of airplanes. Accidents will continue to happen on the airplane not because of the environment (flying freight at night or on long distances), or because I said so, but because it is poorly designed. The only hope is that Fedex may voluntarily retire the airplane soon, as most passenger carriers did unbelieveably quickly, far more quickly than almost any other modern airplane. Perhaps Fedex is showing their hand now by buy NEW 777’s, they have almost never bought new airplanes before.

The 777 was never intended as a MD-11 replacement. FedEx needed an airplane with a larger payload/range curve than the MD-11, which was the A380F. However, when the schedule went backwards/got cancelled on that then the 777-200LRF fitted the bill nicely. The MD-11 may end up flying more domestic trips as the 777’s continue to get delivered, but they won’t go away. Sorry to tell you that, you’ll just have to keep a look out in case one flys over;))

They may be dated in their original date of production but are very much currently in production and hence kept upto date by specialists who will include safety enhancements for the modern later variants that can be recommended/deemed vital for older aircraft models/variants.
The MD-11 is 9 years post cessation of production and unless Boeing choose to uphold developments and safety enhancements for it – it is unfortunately condemmed to the modern consumerist approach of being ‘scrappage’ or used in countries where aircraft safety isn’t of paramount importance.

mmmmmmmmmm…so MD-11’s with electronic flight bags, head-up displays with enchanced forward vision sensors and main deck fire suppression systems are not up-to-date then???? It shows how little you know about the industry when you use the terminology “kept up-to-date by specialists”

(please pm me if you don’t know what these are)

It can’t be all crap – someone somewhere that has good business sense and takes customer/passenger attitudes seriously must have made decisions to reflect what is (if accurate) shown on this list at http://md-eleven.net/Production-List
The only major European carrier shown in the list still flying the MD-11 in passenger configuration is KLM which surprises me.
The facts in URL http://www.airlinesafety.com/faq/faq9.htm speak for themselves and the original accident reports can be used to authenticate the summaries/extracts shown in the URL.
Nice flight deck or not it’s reaching a big decision time at a level higher than our arguments can ever influence – Boeing.

I suggest you write a severely worded letter to KLM and get them to stop operating them then:rolleyes: I believe they are being phased out with A330’s/777’s anyway. The MD-11 never made the range/payload predictions it promised, which is why most are in service as freighters. Personally, I have always loved flying on them and still do.

Would certainly cause chaos in the freight industry!

Fedex operate 60 aircraft, three have been written off.

UPS operate 37 aircraft, four have been written off.

Lufthansa operate 16, one has been written off.

Would suggest that these figures are par for the course considering the nature of the operations. I believe the MD.11 does require the pilot to be at the top of his game and is unforgiving of errors that might be acceptable in other aircraft.

Wrong. UPS haven’t lost ANY MD-11’s. The other freighter you haven’t mentioned was the Avient machine which crashed on T/O at PVG last year. The report on this one doesn’t blame the jet either (although I’m sure Ship 741 will prove different)

IMHO the MD-11 should immediately be grounded.

For reasons I have posted numerous times on this board, MD-11 landing accidents will continue to occur.

Why bother having an official investigation when so many of you know what happened already:rolleyes:

Reports say it had a cargo fire prior to touchdown. The aircraft could have had structural damage prior to touchdown and the crews priority wouldn’t have been a greaser.

Call the NTSB, tell them what happened and save them some time and travel expenses:rolleyes:

Not an engine failure though. Looks like a failure of the thrust reverser C Duct inner barrel and subsequent damage to the exhaust nozzle and flap track fairings as it departed the engine. Apparently the only reason it didn’t make it back to the UK was due to a higher fuel burn due to increased drag.