HerkDriver

Just a nagging question in the back of my mind: Why such a difference in safety records between FedEx and UPS? Same basic flying operations. Same risks. Same aircraft (basically). In the 8 yrs that I have been at FedEx, we have lost 3 aircraft and sadly, 2 crewmembers. Not the case for UPS. Can anybody shed some light on the discrepancy between us and UPS? No bashing each other, please.

This was a tough week to be at work. Not an hour went by without thinking about our fallen comrades and thier families. I'd just like for all of us to learn from this accident.

FLMD11CAPT

Could simply be the difference in raw numbers of flights and flight hours flown. Sooner or later it happens. Probability catches up. We fly an order of magnitude more than UPS. It's a possibility. Blessings upon the 80 crew and their family.

FLMD

Sniper

beat me to it

MD11Fr8Dog

Yep, and I bet UPS has a whole lot more truck accidents than FedEx!

Sideshow Bob

First of all...even saying stuff like this out loud (even though you're a Purple guy, and that is bad juju in and of itself) is wacky, we (meaning Fed Ex/UPS) are different animals. Perhaps somebody knows the block hours of each so notwithstanding that, despite being a "man of science" I am firmly rooted in superstition and voodoo. So there. There are those who have and those who will, so call me superstitious for not mentioning the unmentionable.

Dance with the Devil long enough and...

My thoughts and hopes are with all of you Fed Ex brothers/sisters.

MaydayMark

I have a loose association with the FDX safety program. (high confidence rumor mill) A few years back, the UPS training guys asked if they could invite themselves to FedEx to discuss this exact subject ... the UPS guys left saying they thought they'd just been lucky.

I think I agree.


Mark

Tuck

No way. Statistics don't bear out more accidents from our more hours. Sorry. Keep in mind that we've had accidents on more than just the MD-10. And this is not counting any haz/DG accidents. There's something different about Fedex here - our Safety Dept, our Standards dept, the fact that we don't take advice from any other carriers. We all draw from the same cross section of pilots and the aircraft are the same. Training/Safety/Standards.

MD11Fr8Dog

Yep, the reinvent the wheel mentality we often see!

Hmmm, I wonder what the Enders Report had to say about this!

MacGuy2

You know it's an interesting point about our safety record and how crummy it appears to be. My points are not necessarily about FedEx vs. UPS, but just what we do. Ever notice when the weather gets really bad, major blizzard in the NE, that the pax guys cancel a million flights and just wait for it to pass. Not us (FedEx). We're out there slugging it out until we run out of duty time and we're dead on our feet (or in our seat). We have, between our pilots and GOC such an incredible "can do" attitude, that I sometimes wonder whether we collectively have enough sense to say, "I think we better just wait this out." It certainly appears that GOC and Flt. Management have no qualms about launching the fleet in any kind of weather. And generally, we seem to accommodate them. It often reminds me of that old Navy statement, "Safety is for sissies."

With respect to the NRT accident, I understand the winds were 40 plus kts. At least on the Bus you can't even open the cargo door with that kind of wind. Were other carriers flying into NRT during that same time frame?

I don't have any answers to these questions, but I do wonder where discretion and safety fit into the big picture of moving packages.

MG2

MD11Fr8Dog

Yea, I wonder if TF, former flt manager/company pilot negotiator that lost his medical once, thinks differently about how things are done, now!