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More than 38,000 gallons of fuel were on the UPS flight as it was taking off from Louisville’s airport, said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear at a news conference Tuesday evening.
UPS MD-11 Crashes on Takeoff
- Thread starter MolaKule
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More than 38,000 gallons of fuel were on the UPS flight as it was taking off from Louisville’s airport, said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear at a news conference Tuesday evening.
I remember when AA Flight 191 crashed shortly after takeoff from Chicago in 1979. The left engine separated from the airplane, and was found on or near the runway. Almost an identical scenario.
It was supposed to be a non stop to L.A. if I remember correctly. It crashed into the Oasis Trailer Park, close to the airport. I believe the cause was a cracked left engine pylon that resulted from improper maintenance procedures.
It was supposed to be a non stop to L.A. if I remember correctly. It crashed into the Oasis Trailer Park, close to the airport. I believe the cause was a cracked left engine pylon that resulted from improper maintenance procedures.
In the Flight 191 DC-10 crash in Chicago, the cause was determined to be improper maintenance procedures, when they removed the engine. American mechanics found they could save a substantial amount of time by removing the engine and pylon as a unit.
McDonnell Douglas procedures called for the engine to be detached at the pylon. They used a large forklift to do this. Supposedly they had several of the bolts detached, but not all when they broke for lunch.
The forklift was the only thing supporting everything when they took lunch. It gradually lost hydraulic pressure, and allowed the engine and pylon assembly to place most all of the load on the few fasteners that were holding it.
This caused a microscopic crack in the engine pylon, that was never detected. This crack continued to get worse, until Flight 191 took off. Then the crack failed completely, thus allowing the left engine, (which was operating at takeoff power), to separate completely.
The engine, went forward and up and over the top of the wing, severing hydraulic lines for flight controls. It is believed that this lack of hydraulic pressure caused the leading edge slats to retract on the left wing only. The right wing slats remained deployed, creating more lift on the right side of the aircraft.
This in turn caused the uncontrolled roll of the aircraft to the left. (As seen in the upper photo). The aircraft then stalled and crashed, killing everyone on board. I believe this accident remains the largest loss of life of any crash in the United States to this day.
The accident happened around 3:00 PM. I took the Northwest Tollway home from work at around 5:00 pm. I had my drivers side window down, and I'll never forget the smell. (The wreckage was still smoking).
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dnewton3
Staff member
All -
This is tragic; we'd all agree.
In today's world, the ability to grab screenshots and videos and post them here does not come without responsibilities. Anything you post still must comply with our rules. I've had to remove several videos of eyewitness accounts and "live" views of the tragedy; some which have language and images inappropriate for BITOG.
Please, let's balance our curiosity with respect for those lost, and our policies here.
This is tragic; we'd all agree.
In today's world, the ability to grab screenshots and videos and post them here does not come without responsibilities. Anything you post still must comply with our rules. I've had to remove several videos of eyewitness accounts and "live" views of the tragedy; some which have language and images inappropriate for BITOG.
Please, let's balance our curiosity with respect for those lost, and our policies here.
SDF is surrounded by industrial areas to the south, and a little bit all around on the west and east sides. The Ford Plant is the big operation there, but there are smaller business. The news reports have also been mentioning "Grade A Auto Parts" receiving damage. I've never been to that location, but I know Grade A auto parts as a salvage yard.
I moved away from Louisville 5 years ago, so don't see this stuff every day like I use to, but looking at the map both runways run more or less run north/south. There's a post office across from the northwest corner of the airport-I use to drop packages off all the time there(it was the closest one to me working at U of L) and I'm not exaggerating to say that UPS was the biggest user of that runway at least from what I saw. I would see UPS planes, and mostly MD-11s, stacked sometimes 3-4 deep waiting to take off just from that vantage point.
The airport, through expansion and land buying, has already consumed an entire neighborhood. Things like the Petroleum facility are a pretty minor player in the industrial scene, but there again Ford is next door and isn't going to move any time soon.
Here's the area in question(this is the south end of the runway)
In relation to this accident, though, I'm just in shock over it. UPS is huge in Louisville-in fact just in casual conversation I'm not sure how many people outside the area realize just how big of an employer and how big of an impact the UPS operation in Louisville has. The news has talked about "everyone in Louisville knows someone who works there." Their tuition benefits, even for college students working part time, use to be excellent and I had tons of students who worked there while in college. I'd teach 8:00AM classes where half my class was rolling in having just finished a shift there(usually the college kids were doing the grunt work of spending entire 8 hour shifts unloading trailers that would then get packed and transferred to planes). This is definitely sad news, especially since most of the casualties of this were people working in the area of the crash.
If the #1 engine came off, the tank pumps will push fuel out of that open fuel line like a fire hose. If you've ever seen fuel being jettisoned, that's the tank pumps pushing that fuel.
You can see in the video where the flame is going over the wing and fuselage as far back as the #2 engine. Raw fuel and maybe flame enters the #2 inlet and causes compressor stall, you can see that in the video.
An unrecoverable situation, loss of thrust from 2 engines at high weight at the worst possible time.
You can see in the video where the flame is going over the wing and fuselage as far back as the #2 engine. Raw fuel and maybe flame enters the #2 inlet and causes compressor stall, you can see that in the video.
An unrecoverable situation, loss of thrust from 2 engines at high weight at the worst possible time.
Most cities with an airport have an exclusion zone of no buildings for several hundred yards directly in line with the ends of the runway. Common crash scenarios of failure to take off, improper approach, and runway overrun are a risk to people on the ground there.
38000 gallons of fuel?
Now I'm wondering what the fuel economy is of a plane
Now I'm wondering what the fuel economy is of a plane
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I guess those numbers are at maximum range? Gallons per ton-mile should improve on shorter flights since you can load less fuel and replace that weight with cargo which would increase the payload tons. Assuming you have enough cargo booked to fly with the plane full.
The MD11 is really not a great aircraft in any operational metric. It was built primarily for low first cost.
The MD11 is really not a great aircraft in any operational metric. It was built primarily for low first cost.
Propflux01
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38000 is max fuel load capacity. It is doubtful it was that full when taking off. They usually only put what they need to get there plus 10%.
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Propflux01
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What is the confusion?
Really? This is the first time you have contemplated this?
OK - let's take the MD-11. An older model, bit of a gas guzzler. 38,000 gallons of fuel for this flight. They'll burn about 30,000 of that between Louisville and Hawaii, which is a distance of roughly 3800 nautical miles if flown directly, which it never is, so, let's call it 4,000 NM.
That means that our MD-11 burns about 9 gallons for every mile it flies.
But it was designed for roughly 300 people.
Here is where the efficiency of airplanes comes in to the calculation.
So, it's the same as each person getting about 33 NMPG, roughly 38 MPG, but it does it at 540 MPH.
Modern airplanes, like the 787, burn about half the fuel for each passenger as older aircraft, like the MD-11. So, a 787, going nearly 600 MPH, is getting about 80 MPG for each passenger.
It's a very efficient machine.
But it's a BIG machine - it weighs over 600,000 lbs at takeoff.
It never did well in passenger service, not a lot of airlines bought it, but it is a mainstay in the cargo world, where fuel efficiency is less of a concern.
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Isn't that near max range? so wouldn't it be fairly full on fuel? I mean I'm not saying 38,000gals+ exactly but it also wouldn't have only 20k gallons for a near max range flight.
A lot of them have done away with those exclusion zones. If this had happened at Dulles airport, many many people would have died. It’s surrounded by houses and businesses.
This was my initial thought. My aircraft performance class broke this accident down. Come to find out mechanics were hoisting the engine and pylon as one together instead of separately according to the repair guide. This caused tiny stress cracks in the pylon from the side to side motion with eventual failure.
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