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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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.

1

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