Varig possibly had different maintenance culture than let’s say Lufthansa. But I strongly doubt that is a factor in this accident. “Bad maintenance” normally reduces operational readiness and causes head-ache in the airline operations department. Airplanes rarely crash due to “bad maintenance”.

The fact that this start-up airline from Africa got an ex-Varig aircraft tells that the resale value isn’t that great (while no freighters sells very good lately).

Avient isn’t a start-up airline. It’s been operating since 1993 and operating DC-10’s since 2005. The MD-11 type was new to Avient.

It’s a pretty sad world we’re living in these days when Airline pilots are carrying hand guns 🙁

Some cargo pilots are FFDO officers too and carry firearms. Just to protect them from those scarey packages.

Not delivered yet. Was doing acceptance flights out of KPAE (Everett) on Monday. Should be delivered into Planet Memphis on Saturday.

Hello,

We are flying to Dom Rep on 4th june and have been allocated seats 9G & H. However Thompson have informed us that the formation of this plane is 2-3-2. But having seats G & H would indicate they are 8 acroos (2-4-2) not 7 across.

Can anybody please clarify the seating formation for me?

Thanks

Sarah1980

Does this help? Thomson 767 cabin shot. Looks like 2-4-2 to me.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/craig747/DSC01955.jpg

Guys lets not forget FEDEX have converted over 60 DC-10’s to the MD-10 standard! So really the DC-10 is still flying just with newer cockpit systems.

Yes, thats it, the last two DC-10’s gone into storage this week. N309FE followed by N315FE (both -30’s). The latter cruised to Victorville at FL410 on Monday and was a relative youngster with 50,664 FH and 16,217 FC since new! For those of you interested fleet status (jets) as of today is.

57 MD-11
60 MD-10-10
11 MD-10-30
68 A300-600
59 A310-200/300
7 757-200
75 727-200

Thats 337 jets!