LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- UPS announced Tuesday that its fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 cargo planes are now officially retired two months after the fiery crash in Louisville that killed 15 people.
As part of a fourth-quarter earnings release Tuesday, the international shipping giant said it "accelerated its fleet modernization plans" in the aftermath of the crash of UPS Flight 2976.
In an email to WDRB Tuesday morning, a company spokesperson said the 26 remaining MD-11 are now in "accelerating retirement." Eighteen new Boeing 767s are scheduled for delivery in the next two years, and the company expects no staffing shortages as a result of the changes.
The plane that crashed in Louisville, built in 1991, went down around 5:15 p.m. Nov. 4 after its left wing caught fire. The plane was fully loaded with fuel for the nine-hour flight to Honolulu from UPS Worldport at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Fifteen people, including three pilots, died in the crash.
Days after the crash, UPS and FedEx said they grounded their fleets of MD-11s "out of an abundance of caution." And the Federal Aviation Administration's directive the following day sidelined the planes until inspection and correction of any problems.
MD-11 aircraft made up about 9% of the UPS airline fleet and 4% of the FedEx fleet, the companies said. Boeing announced in 1998 that it would be phasing out its MD-11 jetliner production, with final deliveries due in 2000. Western Global Airlines is the only other U.S. cargo airline that flies MD-11s, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. The airline has 16 MD-11s in its fleet but 12 of them have already been put in storage.
Several lawsuits against UPS, General Electric and Boeing are all pending and more than a month later cleanup continues and many businesses remain closed.
'Fatigue cracks'
The cockpit voice recorder captured the bell, which sounded about 37 seconds after the crew called for takeoff thrust, NTSB member Todd Inman said. There are different types of alarms, Inman said, with varying meanings and investigators haven’t determined why the bell rang, though they know the left wing was burning and the engine on that side had detached.
The NTSB's preliminary report said the plane's left engine caught fire and detached during takeoff. In that report, the agency's investigation revealed the part that secured the engine showed "fatigue cracks." Investigators say the UPS plane got only 30 feet into the air before it crashed and burst into flames, hitting several businesses just south of the airport.
The UPS cargo plane, built in 1991, was nearly airborne when a bell sounded in the cockpit, Inman said. For the next 25 seconds, the bell rang and the pilots tried to control the aircraft as it barely lifted off the runway, its left wing ablaze and missing an engine, and then plowed into the ground in a spectacular fireball.
Earlier this month, the NTSB said its team found fatigue cracking and overstress failure across much of the bearing race inside the area that attached the plane's left engine to its wing. NTSB investigators then went back into Boeing service data and confirmed the design of the bearing assembly was consistent with the original design of that part. However, a Boeing Service Letter dated Feb. 7, 2011, told operators the company was aware of four previous bearing race failures on three different airplanes. Boeing had seen the fractures of the bearing race, with the parts splitting in two and moving out of place.
However, Boeing told operators its review of the bearing failure "would not result in a safety of flight condition."
Boeing said further regular inspection of MD-11 airplanes would include a look at this bearing assembly, something scheduled for 60-month service intervals. And while Boeing used that service letter to discuss a new bearing assembly configuration, the installation of the original parts "was not prohibited."
As a result of these findings, the NTSB said it's now reviewing:
- How the inspections of the bearing assembly was incorporated
- How UPS utilized the contents of the service letter into its regular maintenance
- What correspondence Boeing had with the Federal Aviation Administration before and after the 2011 service letter was released
A full report from the NTSB is expected sometime in early 2026.
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