cool. No one GAS

 

number 4.

Like I said, that metric is a good starting point to a safety assessment, but you're stopping at the starting point instead of asking a lot of essential follow-up questions such as

"why is the hull loss rate high?"

"what has been done to mitigate the issues since the majority of those hull losses?"

"was this most recent issue preventable with better maintenance inspections or procedures?"

"will those inspections and procedures be improved?"

and so on.

It boils down to thinking one or two ways:

1. "what is the risk of being on an MD-11, and has it been effectively mitigated?"

or

2. "this bad thing happened on the MD-11 which means the airplane is never going to be safe again even if they adequately mitigate the risk"


Decisions and opinions made using only one highlighted statistic without giving weight to much else are not well thought out. Emotional response vs rational thought.


Let's say Boeing builds a new airplane, certifies it, and sells it. It flies for a year without a hull loss. Does that make it a safer airplane? If you measure it by hull loss per departure, sure, but that doesn't actually mean it's a safer airplane.

The 737 MAX had the lowest hull loss rate per departure up until the moment it didn't. Has Boeing adequately mitigated the risk since? Will you still get on a 737 MAX?

The 787 has one hull loss due to what is almost certainly a pilot decision, how is that weighted? does that airplane become less safe than it was the day before it happened?

 

I think you misunderstand me. In no way do I intend to disparage the MD-11 pilots, or the MD-11 training department at FDX or anywhere else. (I do have some idea of the training the MD-11 pilots go through and I know its excellent. I won't retract my statement. PM me if you like and I'll send across my personal info so you can look out for me on the j/s.) But I claim that the need for such thorough training is a symptom of design flaws of the aircraft. What is the alternative? That FedEx just likes to give extra training on the MD for fun? No...they needed to enhance that training to compensate for the safety record of the aircraft, because they either couldn't get it insured or they had civil aviation authorities threatening to ban the aircraft if there was another incident (my speculation only...if you have a better explanation for why FDX would give such extensive landing training I'm happy to hear it).

 

Just because it doesn’t fly like every other airplane you’ve flown doesn’t mean it’s a flaw. Is a tailwheel a design flaw? You have to fly a tail dragger differently or it will bite you as well. FDX’s landing performance team has done a great job recognizing its differences and training people to operate it safely. A lot of these recommendations have made other fleets safer as well. The MU2 used to be barely insurable, then the SFAR came out requiring specific training for it. Now it has a better safety records than most other turboprops. The 11 might be a bit more demanding to fly, but in well trained and capable hands it’s a solid airplane.

 

I partially agree with you. We should ask why the hull loss rate is high, and what can be or has been done to mitigate it. If, for example, the MD-11 was consistently being flown into a combat zone or to a dirt runway at 10000 feet above sea level then perhaps it would make sense to look at those as possible reasons why the hull loss rate is so much higher. But its not. Its has been flown to the same airports with the same cadre of pilots in the same or similar conditions as all of the other aircraft. So why IS the hull loss rate so much higher. I invite your answer, but in the meantime I propose at least two possibilities:

1) The redesign from DC-10 to MD-11...adding weight and length without substantially redesigning the wing and tail. As far as I can find this has resulted in higher speeds on landing, less stability (hence the LSAS), higher wing loading. Combine all of these items and you have an aircraft that is very unforgiving the landing enviroment. At this point in the life of the aircraft I very much doubt that we will see a complete redesign to address all of these deficiencies. Thus the only possible (partial) mitigation is enhanced crew training.

2) The design of the landing gear and wing attachment. In several of the MD hull loss accidents which occurred in the landing environment (after a hard or bounced landing) one wing detached from the aircraft while the other wing continued to provide lift. In the instances where this occurred the reuslt is almost always that the aircraft rolls over. The design failure mode and strength of the gear and wing roots is a significant design decision that cannot be changed after the fact without significant expense, which is probably not economical.

Here is the extract from the JTSB report on FDX80. You can find a similar discussion in the NTSB report for Newark.
"It is somewhat likely that, if the fuse pin in the MLG support structure had failed and the MLG had been separated in the overload condition in which the vertical load is the primary component, the damage to the fuel tanks would have been reduced to prevent the fire from developing rapidly. It is probable that the fuse pin did not fail because the failure mode was not assumed under an overload condition in which the vertical load is the primary component due to the interpretation of the requirement at the time of type certification for the MD-11 series airplanes."


The risk is multiple things as highlighted above, only some of which can/will be mitigated due to the age of the aircraft and probably limited remaining lifespan. Yes a bad thing happened on the airplane. Does that mean it will never be safe? Of course not...with enough time, money, and effort I suspect the airplane could be made as safe as any other. I'm repeating myself, but I don't think the economic justification is there to make these kinds of changes.

Yes, but that's not what we're talking about here. All of the aircraft under consideration have a history of millions of departures.

Again, these statistical anomalies are washed out over millions of departures. Latest information I could find on 787 number of departures is ~5 million (from Boeing in April 2025), so the hull loss rate including the June 2025 accident is at most 1/5,000,000 = 0.2 per million departures, vs ~3.125 per million departures for the MD. Presently the hull loss rate per million departures for the 737 MAX is 0.41...again, (approximately) an order of magnitude better than the MD.

I've said just about all I have to say on the topic, so I'll give you guys and gals the last word. As I told Adler earlier I don't make the decisions on what types FDX or UPS decide to fly. I can only speak for myself. If you think my decision is an emotional one so be it. I've tried to lay out my argument clearly, with statistics that (as far as I can tell) are widely accepted in the aviation safety world as relevant and informative.

 

"It's an expensive time of the year to have outsourced lift," said FedEx chief financial officer John Dietrich during the company's earnings call. He added that FedEx expects the MD-11s to return to service in its fiscal fourth quarter, the March-to-May 2026 period.

 

Buy some new jets. There are problems being found on a fleet that just isn't aging as well as DC-8s and 727s aged. Solve the pylon issue and some other thing will emerge in another spot that's hard to inspect.

And a plane that makes people take pride in the requirement to be a super pilot; I've seen that game played. In smaller planes it was the MU-2, Piper Aerostar, etc. The pilots of those planes, like the ones flying the MD would take pride that their planes were less forgiving. The implication was they were, somehow, better aviators, so they'd argue to keep crappy equipment on the line. To be fair I did the same thing when I thought I was hot stuff too. They weren't better. I wasn't better. You aren't better.

That cultural nonsense is masking the truth; there's a design flaw, a flaw in design philosophy perhaps. The MU-2 and Aerostar weren't designed for the roles they found in night freight. The MD-11 wasn't designed for the role it finds itself in decades later. Why make it easier to foist sub-par equipment on our crews?

I fly for a third tier company. You guys fly for first tier companies. Why should I be in a newer jet than you? Get new equipment made from fresher metal. Boeing still has the 767 freighter in production.

 

The MD11’s were paid for long ago and they hold 30% more than the 767. We are buying new 767 already. We took delivery of the 159th one this month. Will probably increase deliveries to make up for the MD situation.

 

Psssst… 149th.
Either way it’s a lot of new freighters in the past few years.

 

Your tailwheel example brings up some interesting points: While not considered a “flawed” design, when is the last time you saw one in a rental or training fleet, or even in a flying club? (Yes, I realize there are some out there, but they are very few & far between). Why is that? Because they require extra training and are notoriously difficult to insure due to their much higher rate of accidents & incidents. They are simply mishandled too often for those types of operators to take on that level of risk. I understand that operators like FedEx & UPS have training programs that can be designed & continuously adjusted to mitigate some of the risk that comes with operating a ‘unique’ design like the MD11. Those programs have generally served them well, although the MD11 fleets at both airlines seem to have continued to have more than their share of incidents. Combine that with the fact that these airplanes have become increasingly more difficult and expensive to maintain, have had restrictions placed on them at international locations due to reliability concerns and noise, are a design from a dead manufacturer that conform to neither Boeing or Airbus design philosophy & thus require more training for transitioning pilots, are less efficient & now two generations behind currently offered airframes in the class, and you start wondering why on earth top tier operators like Fex & UPS still want to fly them. Personally, I think it’s time to take the hint & retire them.