NTSB probes why a UPS jet lost an engine and crashed on takeoff
By Alexandra Skores, CNN
Washington (CNN) — The National Transportation Safety Board will meet Tuesday and Wednesday to investigate why a UPS McDonnell Douglas MD-11F lost an engine and crashed after taking off last year from Louisville, Kentucky.
The hearing comes just days after the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the same type of aircraft to return to the skies.
On November 4, UPS flight 2976, a cargo plane headed to Hawaii, crashed moments after taking off from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, spreading flames and wreckage for a half-mile and sending black smoke billowing into the sky. Fourteen people died, including the three crew members on the plane 23 people on the ground were injured.
The UPS freighter was a 34-year-old jet with three engines: two on the wings and one on the tail.
Now, over the two days of the hearing, the NTSB will question witnesses, including representatives of UPS, the pilot’s union, the FAA and Boeing, to help determine what went wrong.
Preliminary findings show fatigue cracks, overstressing
The agency already determined a pair of structural fittings that kept the left jet engine attached to the wing failed, according to a preliminary NTSB report.
Airport surveillance video the NTSB analyzed frame by frame showed the engine separating and going up and over the wing before falling alongside the runway. The plane spewed fire and only got about 30 feet in the air before crashing into a warehouse, storage yard, and petroleum recycling facility.
The pieces attaching the engine to the wing, known as lugs, showed signs of fatigue cracking and over-stressing, investigators said.
Three days after the crash, UPS grounded its MD-11 planes, and the following day the FAA grounded all MD-11 planes in the United States until inspections were completed. At the time of the crash, MD-11 aircraft made up approximately 9% of UPS’ fleet, the carrier said. FedEx and Western Global Airlines also flew the same type of aircraft.
Last week, “after extensive review, the FAA approved Boeing’s protocol for safely returning MD-11 airplanes to service,” the agency told CNN in a statement.
Boeing, the manufacturer is responsible for the MD-11 since it bought McDonnell Douglas, provided inspection and repair instructions. Boeing “continues to provide technical support and guidance to help them meet FAA requirements,” a company spokesperson told CNN.
UPS announced it does not plan to fly its MD-11s any longer. However FedEx has already resumed some flights with repaired and inspected aircraft.
Unanswered questions
During this week’s hearings, more details about what caused the crash are expected to be made public.
All previous maintenance will be reviewed, including overhaul work done for six weeks that the aircraft was out of service in September and October in San Antonio, Texas. The plane resumed flying for UPS less than a month before the crash.
The information from the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder will indicate what the pilots said and how they reacted to the troubled flight.
Investigators will also probe what information UPS was required to report to Boeing and the FAA, operational safety process and engine attachment designs.
A final report from the NTSB is typically expected in 18 to 24 months after an accident, detailing the probable causes of the crash. The agency does not place blame but determines what went wrong and provides recommendations to improve safety.
The-CNN-Wire
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