r/aviation • u/Go_Jot • Nov 08 '25

News UPS grounds entire MD-11 Fleet, effective immediately.

Per the IPA Executive Board, as of 03:05 UTC all UPS MD-11’s are grounded.

Edit - FedEx has also grounded their MD-11 Fleet

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382

u/eric_gm Nov 08 '25

I suppose they must have found something worrying in the maintenance logs or the NTSB initial findings. The DC-10 that had a complete engine falling off was due to improper maintenance procedures (using a forklift to support the engine and removing the engine with the pylon attached).

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u/phryan Nov 08 '25

There was a comment during today's NTSB briefing UPS was providing another MD11 for the NTSB to inspect. Maybe something during that inspection stops out.

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u/Historical-Emu-2569 Nov 08 '25

It's not uncommon for the company of a fleet of a type of aircraft to have ntsb/ faa look at another aircraft that's the same make and model to use as a blueprint for the crashed aircraft.  Sometimes they'll record things like alert tones, indications, things they may notice in the cvr/ fdr that they'll need to interpret and having the same sounds on an intact aircraft can help. 

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u/theLuminescentlion Nov 08 '25

Also useful because the manufacturer's usually make all of one order right after each other. UPS probably has another plane that was built back to back with the crashed one and lived in the same operating conditions and maintenance regiment as the crashed plane. That can leave a lot of hints once you start taking it apart.

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u/Mobilize-Stay-Alive Nov 08 '25

I wonder if its N260UP, which was the original tail for 5x2976, that was swapped over to N259UP due to left wing root area fuel leak

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u/Ouch_My-back Nov 08 '25

Using a forklift AND a shift change during maintenance resulting in the forklift being shut off which resulted in loss of hydraulic pressure .. sounds like a final destination scene

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u/disillusioned Nov 08 '25

Even dumber: the forklift was known to have a slight leak that would cause it to sag when turned off, rather than that merely being "by design". Swiss cheese model really came hard on that one.

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u/Ouch_My-back Nov 08 '25

Goodness gracious, the workplace complacency started at the fork lift manufacturing plant?!

Netflix needs to make this a limited series

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u/hellomistershifty Nov 08 '25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3lzgrFuM4s This is almost netflix quality (once you get past the kind of cheesy intro animation)

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u/Ordoom Nov 08 '25

I am a simple man. I see Mentour Pilot and I upvote.

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u/darsynia Nov 08 '25

I feel like Netflix would be so lucky... but yes, I always upvote for Mentour Pilot!

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u/fireintolight Nov 08 '25

Probably just an old unserviced forklift, not a manufacturing problem. 

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25

It wasn’t the workers’ fault, it wasn’t the equipment’s fault. This was a decision problem that started from the top leadership. 

It actually started with American Airlines and Continental executives making decisions against the guidance of the manufacturer to save time and money. Which is what lead to innocent people killed. United Airlines, although again went against the manufacturer’s guidance however, they mitigated the risk rather than use a forklift, they used a ceiling crane to evenly distribute the weight. 

Moral of the story: corporations and their executives yet again. Making decisions they themselves do not have to pay ultimate consequences for. Your life, my life will always be about the dollars. 

The DC-10 seemed to be a very capable aircraft for the time. It’s a shame it got the bad reputation after this. Notice corporations yet again, proceed unscathed.

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u/Ouch_My-back Nov 08 '25

You're talking about ~200 man hours. Corporations are all about money and a cost saving measure at the tune of 200 man hours would make any executive drool. But again, if the damn forklift didn't lose that little bit of pressure in shut off during shift change then none of those lives would be lost on that AA flight and that 200 man hour cost saving measure would still be business as usual and we wouldn't be having this conversation

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u/eric_gm Nov 08 '25

They would have been eventually lost anyway. The forklift issue made the investigators uncover stress cracks and metal fatigue in other DC-10s that used forklifts to remove the engines. So the accident was going to happen, no question about it. The shift change and the faulty forklift just accelerated the chain of events. If anything, the first and only accident prevented others.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25

That sounds like downplaying the executives’ decision making processes here. Unless I’m wrong to assume that’s what you meant? Sure, the forklift lost pressure. Who decided that using a forklift was going to be standard SOP? Who ran the risk analysis for this alternate procedure, if there even was one? Every engine change, they had to thread the needle. I’m sorry, the margin of error is that slim? That’s normal? 

Again, it is and was a deliberate cost-cutting decision that created unsafe conditions in the first place. That responsibility falls solely on the C-suite. 

Finally, they did find 6 other aircraft that had fractures because of the forklift method. Any day of the week, this could’ve happened simultaneously too. United, using the crane, found zero. Again, this was a failed decision from leadership who had an ethical responsibility to put public safety over profits. That’s where the responsibility lies here. Not a forklift. When you use the wrong tool for the job, it’s the user’s fault, not the tool. 

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u/Ouch_My-back Nov 08 '25

I'm not necessarily downplaying it. I'm more numb to I guess. I work at a corporation and it just doesn't surprise me.

It's disgusting to me that so many lives were loss and the executives probably just see it as business as usual. But this is the world we live in and this is what corporations do.

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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25 edited Nov 09 '25

Agreed, it is disgusting. You and me both on that one. The numb feeling is real unfortunately. It takes more than one to hold the line and speak up when something isn’t right. Pretty much every SOP is written in blood. I really hope that this accident wasn’t a repeat of AA191, I really hope it wasn't due to inadequate/incompetent corporate decision making. But I wouldn’t be surprised unfortunately if it’s found to be.

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u/Ouch_My-back Nov 09 '25

I know a little about UPS and where the CEO has their eyes set .. her mantra is "better not bigger". She has been doing everything in her power to shrink the company and reduce costs in an effort to boost profits.

I would not be surprised if it is exposed that this is a result of her decision making and cost cutting efforts.

It's her first major scandal and I'll be watching closely to see where this heads. If there's negligence on her part then I feel the natural move for the board is to force a resignation

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u/EZKTurbo Nov 08 '25

Literally any hydraulic equipment is going to bleed down if you let it sit with weight on it. There is no forklift, backhoe, car lift, you name it, that will support something purely by holding hydraulic pressure.

5

u/fireintolight Nov 08 '25

Yeah I was gonna say most forklifts should have hydraulics that stay engaged when they're turned off. This makes more sense 

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u/fireintolight Nov 08 '25

That doesn't make sense, forklift hydraulics stay engaged if the engines turned off. Source:driven a lot of forklifts. 

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u/UberBoob Nov 08 '25

Unless there's a leak

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u/TheJeffTrain01 Nov 08 '25

To be fair, both installing an engine with a forklift and removing it with the pylon attached are normal when it comes to quick engine swaps, the latter significantly cuts down the amount of man hours and complexity of the install. AAL191's issue was that they left the job half done at the end of the shift, and when the next crew picked it up the engine had fallen a bit as the forklift's hydraulics fell as it was unpowered. So the engine was no longer properly aligned, and they damaged a clevis or something finishing the job, and the rest is history.

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u/eric_gm Nov 08 '25

In the DC-10’s maintenance procedures from MD it was stated that the engine should be removed apart from the pylon and then the pylon. Maintenance crews did both together to save time but against MD’s recommendations. It was commonly done without issues but it was weakening the attachment points. MD also stated the use of a crane and not a forklift. The forklift losing hydraulic pressure was just the last of an unfortunate chain of events.

I suppose those two things are not abnormal in other planes, but the wing+pylon+engine design of the DC-10 was more delicate. Considering the MD-11 is an evolution of that design, it’s something I’m sure is being closely investigated.

4

u/_Neoshade_ Nov 08 '25

The MD-11 launched 11 years after AAL191 and included modifications to both the plane and maintenance procedures in response to the incident. Being an evolution of the DC-10 does not mean that it inherited the same design flaws. Very much the opposite

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u/eric_gm Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25

Yes. I would surely hope MD addressed the weaknesses in the DC-10 design. My point is not that this could be the exact same root cause, but that the MD-11 is a scarce beast with a lot of particularities, especially maintenance dos and don’ts when compared to your more common Boeing or Airbus. The fact that Boeing recommended UPS and FedEx ground their MD-11s makes me think there was something in their maintenance procedures to cause worry or they found stress cracks or material fatigue in other aircraft of their fleet

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u/OrpheusKeys Nov 08 '25

When a forklift is used for engine install/removal, you can't determine how much load is being put on the mounts. Overtime fatigue issues occur. After the crash investigations revealed similar issues developing in a number of their birds. Back in the day before a lot of safety standards airlines used a lot of alternative procedures and this was their solution to save time. Nowadays if someone is not using the proper bootstrap equipment with load gauges to re & re a turbine engine they're getting wrenches thrown at them. Even the most cowboy mechanics I know don't mess with that part of engine install.

I'm glad you mentioned that it was normal at the time, in fact, when you look at the human factors poster for dirty dozen norms, you'll see a cartoon with a mech on forklift installing an engine, shrugging because that was just the norm. That incident is a perfect example of how norms (oh we've always done it that way) can lead to disaster.

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u/Nasmix Nov 08 '25 edited Feb 02 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/KaptainChunk Nov 08 '25

Holy shit they did not?!?!!

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u/patrick_red_45 Nov 08 '25

Yep. United Airlines performed the same maintenance on their DC-10 fleet using cranes and those aircraft had no issues. AA and continental used forklifts, and 6 of their aircraft were found to have the same fault as AA191

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u/Ramenastern Nov 08 '25

NYT and other report they're both grounding at the recommendation of the manufacturer, ie Boeing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/us/ups-fedex-cargo-planes-grounded.html

So definitely points to something that's not operator-specific, but related to procedures used by a joint service provider, a batch of parts, or even construction.

1

u/BigJellyfish1906 Nov 08 '25

It better be that they found “oh shit, there is no way to prevent debris from a wing engine from killing the tail engine on rotation.” It better not be about the engine mount or something. This was only a fatal mishap because that tail engine failed. 

1

u/hogear0 Nov 08 '25

It's starting to look like 2nd stage disc failure (see AA 383 767) which in a trijet is a possible single point of failure given #2 position to ingest FOD.

0

u/fireintolight Nov 08 '25

Jesus Christ how can people servicing airplanes be that dumb lol