UPS plane crash

[Penfold101]

Having watched documentaries about how these parcel services work with the distribution hubs, planes, vans and the sheer logistical nightmare that can occur when it breaks down, I wonder just how much of a plan is in place to recover from losing a huge chunk of their air freight capacity overnight, especially at this time of year.

 

[Werewolf]

Having watched documentaries about how these parcel services work with the distribution hubs, planes, vans and the sheer logistical nightmare that can occur when it breaks down, I wonder just how much of a plan is in place to recover from losing a huge chunk of their air freight capacity overnight, especially at this time of year.

Probably not as much as you'd think, 50 aircraft across UPS/Fed-Ex is quite a small number, I think UPS alone routinely uses something like 400+ so potentially less than a 5% drop in capacity in terms of airframes.
They also can and will hire in capacity from other aircraft operators so it'll probably be fun times for the planning staff but I suspect not something they have not got experience and plans in place for, as having a model of aircraft grounded for a while is not unknown and one of the reasons a lot of aircraft operators will try and maintain a mix of different models as they know one incident can result in an entire fleet being grounded for checks.

 

[Drukk]

Now the FAA have grounded the MD-11 that may well be the planes done now regardless of what the investigation concludes.

As it's an FAA directive FedEx and UPS will now be able to claim off their insurance for the downtime which means from a purely financial POV as they were planning on scrapping the planes imminently anyway it makes sense to not even waste money doing the inspections (and any required remediations/modifications the FAA dictates) required to put them back into service and just accelerate the replacement program.

I would be surprised if they just scrap them, they have contacts to fulfill and carrying out an AD in the grand scheme of things aviation is not that expensive. They can't just get replacement aircraft off the shelf tomorrow.

 

[Penfold101]

Probably not as much as you'd think, 50 aircraft across UPS/Fed-Ex is quite a small number, I think UPS alone routinely uses something like 400+ so potentially less than a 5% drop in capacity in terms of airframes.
They also can and will hire in capacity from other aircraft operators so it'll probably be fun times for the planning staff but I suspect not something they have not got experience and plans in place for, as having a model of aircraft grounded for a while is not unknown and one of the reasons a lot of aircraft operators will try and maintain a mix of different models as they know one incident can result in an entire fleet being grounded for checks.

I just checked the numbers on Wikipedia - 27 MD11’s out of a total fleet of 292 aircraft plus another 200 leased or chartered, so like you said, not actually as big an impact as I’d initially thought. The fact it happened at their main hub is probably a bigger factor.

They weren’t due to be retired till 2032 but replacing them with more leased aircraft till then could be an option depending on the outcome of the current investigation.

 

[ubersonic]

They weren’t due to be retired till 2032 but replacing them with more leased aircraft till then could be an option depending on the outcome of the current investigation.

There's also their planned retirement sequence, they are currently receiving regular deliveries of 767 and 777 which are supposed to be replacing their MD-11 and A-300 fleet. So they could temporarily stop retiring the A-300s to get the MD-11s gone faster, and buy some used 767/777 to accelerate the process (most of their MD-11 were bought used after they were retired form passenger service). I suppose it all depends how their bean counters look at it, but the insurance payout for the grounding is going to be a nice boon for them.

 

[I_M_Weasel]

Juan at Blancolirio (usually reliable) thinks it was a failure of the turbine that catastrophically damaged the engine and sheared off the engine. The engine and pylon assembly then flew over the aircarft and in doing so the tail mounted engine ingested debris and began to surge. This happened just after rotation leaving no room to stop and not enough power or frust to get to any othe runway - as Juan says - doomed and nothin they could do.

 

[Penfold101]

Juan at Blancolirio (usually reliable) thinks it was a failure of the turbine that catastrophically damaged the engine and sheared off the engine. The engine and pylon assembly then flew over the aircarft and in doing so the tail mounted engine ingested debris and began to surge. This happened just after rotation leaving no room to stop and not enough power or frust to get to any othe runway - as Juan says - doomed and nothin they could do.

It seems plausible and Jaun is very well informed about these things so he’s probably correct in some fashion - I quote him a lot in these matters. It does seem incredible that a fan or turbine loss could cause severe enough vibrations to rip the pylon instantly off the wing without the engine going first, as fan losses, while not common as such, aren’t unknown but I’ve never seen one cause the engine/pylon to come off like that. Causing the centre engine to fail is ridiculously unlucky - the time it happened is just awful.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

14 dead now .

13 dead 9 missing last thing I heard yesterday. Too many