Originally Posted by
md11pilot11
It is also important to look at the individual accidents and their respective reports. I understand what the statistics you’ve calculated say. But there is more nuance to each individual accident. It’s not that hard to look up all 11 hull losses. And there is no debate on the MD11s handling characteristics as stated by both the NTSB and FAA. But 3 of the hull losses were Korean 6316, CFIT due to confusion on meters and feet. Avent 324 which tried to takeoff without takeoff power. The captain had been flying an A340 for 6 months. The FO had not flown in over a year and the two other crew had 0 time in type. And lastly Swissair 111, which we all know about.
China eastern 583 was an inadvertent slat deployment as well causing 2 fatalities. The flap handle was then modified with that purple plastic to prevent accidental deployment.
For the bounced landing accidents:
FDX14
FDX80
LH8460
China 642- landing in tropical storm 26G38 direct x wind. The aircraft touched down on its right engine separating the wing.
FDX87.
45 knot airspeed discrepancies. And continuing the approach and landing fast.
And there was the UPS reject above V1.
Im not trying to dismiss the numbers or the inherent instability. Im just trying to provide some information that you can think about. So there is more information than just 3.125.
Of course we can do this, but if the goal is to somehow explain away the MD11s poor safety record and say that they're all isolated incidents that aren't really representative, then we should do the same for the other airplanes. The statistic in question is hull losses per departure, so only the hull losses which occurred after setting takeoff power would be counted. Consider the 777...if we play the same game there we note that the triple has had a total of eight hull losses, but only 5 of these occurred after setting takeoff power, and these would be the ones counted in this statistic:
1) British Airways 38 - fuel starvation due to ice in the fuel system
2) Asiana Airlines 214 - crash on final due to unstable approach
3) Malaysia 370 - unknown...lots of speculation, most likely theory that fits the evidence is that one of the pilots deliberately crashed to commit suicide
4) Malaysia 17 - SA-17
5) Emirates 521 - Crew didn't add power during a rejected landing
(For the sake of completeness here are the other three are EgyptAir 667, Singapore Nov2017, and Ethiopian Jul2020. These all occurred during ground handling.)
So considering the 5 777 hull losses which occurred in flight, we have at least one (Malaysia 17) and possibly two (if you include Malaysia 370) which is/are not in any way due to a problem with the aircraft. Of the remaining three, two were crew induced so that we really only have one (BA38) where the causal factor was a design/engineering issue.
The upshot is that over millions of departures the statistical anomalies should wash out, so that by considering the whole body of work we can get a picture of how safe or unsafe an aircraft is...and the result is that the MD11 is profoundly unsafe...which is precisely why it is no longer operated by any passenger carrier. Consider that the last MD11 was built in October 2000 making it just over 25 years old, while DAL, UAL, and AA all operate aircraft that are the same age or older (apparently DAL has a 757 which is 35 years old).