The US civil aviation authorities have ordered that all MD-11 cargo planes remain grounded for inspections, after one of them was involved in a deadly crash in Kentucky recently.
A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft operated by UPS exploded into flames when it crashed shortly after departing Tuesday from the airport in Louisville, killing at least 14 people. A three-person crew was aboard.
Freight carriers UPS and FedEx later grounded their MD-11 fleets, while Boeing, which owns McDonnell Douglas, said it had recommended that all operators suspend their use of the planes.
On Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency directive that “prohibits further flight until the airplane is inspected and all applicable corrective actions are performed.”
The directive applies to the MD-11 and MD-11F models and says it “was prompted by an accident where the left-hand engine and pylon detached from the airplane during takeoff.”
“The agency has determined the unsafe condition is likely to exist or develop in other products of the same type design,” it said.
On Friday, UPS said it had decided to “temporarily ground” its MD-11s out of an abundance of caution and in the interest of safety.” It said the model accounts for about 9% of its fleet.
FedEx said Saturday it, too, had grounded its 28 MD-11s out of a total fleet of around 700 aircraft as it conducts a safety review.
Both carriers said they were acting on a recommendation from the plane’s manufacturer. McDonnell Douglas originally developed the MD-11, but it was acquired by Boeing in 1997.
Boeing said it had “recommended to the three operators of the MD-11 Freighter that they suspend flight operations while additional engineering analysis is performed.”
The only other carrier using the MD-11 is Western Global Airlines.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said another crash victim had been located, bringing the total number to 14.
“Please pray for these families, the Louisville community, and everyone affected by this terrible event,” he said on X.
The plane, filled with around 38,000 gallons (144,000 liters) of fuel for the long-haul flight to Hawaii, narrowly missed a major Ford vehicle assembly plant that employs about 3,000 people.
Aerial footage of the crash site showed a long trail of debris as firefighters doused the flames, with smoke billowing from the area.
Todd Inman, a member of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said this week that investigators had identified the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — known as a plane’s black boxes — and would send them to Washington for analysis.
The crash was reportedly the deadliest in UPS history. Its main hub, Worldport, is in Louisville, where it employs thousands of people.
According to the NTSB, the plane was built in 1991 and was modified into a cargo aircraft.
The crash comes amid the longest government shutdown in US history, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warning this week of “mass chaos” in the skies due to a lack of air traffic control staff.
Inman said the NTSB was not aware of any staff shortages at Louisville’s airport at the time of the crash.
US Air Travel To Slow Down
Meanwhile, Air travel in the United States could soon “slow to a trickle,” authorities warned on Sunday, as thousands more flights were cancelled or delayed and passengers faced chaos triggered by the federal government shutdown.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the number of flights being snarled or cut would multiply if the funding impasse between Democrats and Republicans continues while Americans gear up to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday later this month.
“It’s only going to get worse,” Duffy said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” a Sunday news talk show.
“The two weeks before Thanksgiving, you’re going to see air travel be reduced to a trickle.”
On Sunday morning, more than 1,330 cancellations were recorded for flights within the United States and to and from the US, according to data from FlightAware, a flight tracking platform.
Airports that were particularly hard hit included the three New York City area airports, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.
Duffy warned that many Americans planning to travel for the November 27 holiday “are not going to be able to get on an airplane, because there are not going to be that many flights that fly if this thing doesn’t open back up.”
Sunday marked the 40th day of the record shutdown and the third day of reduced flights at airports nationwide, after the Trump administration ordered reductions to ease strain on air traffic controllers working without pay.
“We’re going to see air traffic controllers, very few of them coming to work, which means you’ll have a few flights taking off and landing,” Duffy told Fox News Sunday.
“You’re going to have massive disruption (and) a lot of angry Americans.”
Duffy sought to blame Democrats for the high-stakes political standoff, but Senator Adam Schiff said Republicans were rejecting a “reasonable” compromise deal to end the shutdown.
“And the result from the Senate Republicans was ‘no,’ from the House Republicans ‘we are staying on vacation,’ and from the president ‘I’m going out to play golf,’ and that’s where we are while people are hurting,” Schiff said.
When asked whether Democrats would turn around and vote with Republicans, Schiff, a California Democrat, indicated that the issue of healthcare subsidies remained a sticking point in negotiations.
“No, I certainly hope it isn’t going to happen if millions of people are going to retain their health coverage and not have to pay these exorbitant premium increases,” Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“We need to end this. We proposed something, I think very reasonable. It was a compromise. Certainly wasn’t everything I want, which is a permanent extension of the tax credits,” he said, urging Republicans to allow “more time to work on this and reopen the government.”
© Agence France-Presse
