The nacelle, up to a point, are made for some containment of engine failures. There have been numerous incidents of uncontained failure resulting in a fuselage breech that killed and injured passengers. It does not make sense to make the nacelle "bulletproof" in all 360 degrees. What is important is the fuselage. That is the reason the fuselage is armored, so to speak, at the high pressure sections of the engine. Perhaps you have noticed as a boarding passenger that a section of seats, abeam the engine, has no windows. That is the area where the protective shield is to prevent engine failure part intrusion.
When I was in Pensacola, a MD-90 took off and one of the engines exploded penetrating the aft fuselage killing some passengers.

 

Great question. First off, the engines cannot be placed in reverse inflight. There have been some instances of that occurring by malfunction and it is almost always catastrophic. There are interlinks so reverse can only be selected on the ground. It does take several seconds for the engine, which must be at idle thrust, to spool up for reversing. There have been one or two cases of a successful recovery of aircraft with a reverse malfunction. In those cases the engine was at low power and immediately shut down. However, the dead reversed engine was high in drag. I can tell you landing in certain gusty conditions with one reverser inoperative can be tricky. The reverse force can be considerable and if it is asymmetrical, it can be sporting to keep things under control.

In this case and really in all cases like this, the rudder is the critical piece of directional control. The DC-10 and MD-11 have articulated rudders that are extremely effective. They were designed that way as the engine take up real estate from normal rudders so those planes need something extra.

A pilot has to be aware that going for a reflexive motion to use ailerons may give the untended, opposite effect in these high AOA angle of attack, slow speed situations. Why? It is not just the ailerons that move. Spoilers on the wing also move reducing lift and magnify the effect of the aileron. What that does is increase in drag, called induced drag or aerodynamic drag, that pulls the wing aft. Rudder is preferred. You can get by with small aileron inputs without significant spoiler deployment.

There was an American Airbus crash over Flushing Bay in which the copilot whipsawed the rudder a couple of times and caused the rudder to fail and depart the airplane. They are built for strength in one direction so you need to be careful before suddenly wanting to change direction. You go to neutral, hesitate, then redeploy.

Even flying fighters at extreme AOA; if a pilot makes an instinctive but incorrect use of the ailerons to suddenly reverse direction, as in tracking an enemy to shoot him down, you can find yourself in a violent sudden departure of controlled flight. No points for second place.

I might add that modern FMS (Flight Management Systems) can interpret the desired movement by actions of pilot control manipulation, and deliver that result via computer to the flight surfaces. It is certainly true for modern military fighters.

 

Forget the BBC and other news speculation for now.

Unless you heard about this from blancolirio) ) it's just non expert speculation. Neither the Democrat party government shutdown, nor the President, nor Air Traffic Control had nothing to do with this beyond the tower's "Cleared for take off."

We know #1 engine (port) fell off. NTSB will soon find out why. What know #2 (center) engine shut down probably from ingesting FOD (Foreign Object Debris AKA the #1 engine) killing that too. #3 (starboard) lacks the power to continue take off or any flight and the asymmetric drag, thrust. and lift rolled the plane as you can see in the photos. Flight crew didn't have a chance of any recovery. Poof! and they were gone. I like to think this happened so fast they didn't have time to digest what happened and the consequences.

-- Chuck

 

I have to say, it is a nice looking plane , especially given the age.

 

I flew the DC-10 after the B727. A real man's airplane. Huge cockpit, giant, comfortable seats. King size windows with outstanding visibility; you could look nearly straight down. Big control columns emblazoned with "DC10". Rudder pedals the size of small surfboards (or so it seemed). Even the ashtrays were built for cigars.
It flew like a dream. No computer driven flight controls; all well balanced direct control. Reminded me of driving my Dad's 1956 Cadillac (light blue)
You could land in a crosswind and make just one wheel, the first one, just kiss the runway. It did drink gas like crazy, especially low altitude.

The MD-11 is the same but with a slightly longer fuselage and wing tips. It has center fuselage landing gear but so did Northwest's DC-10 30s and 40s. Special Order for International route operations. The MD-11 also went "glass" in the cockpit instruments. At the time, it was a big deal.

 

Saw this in Flying magazine.

The evidence looks like the engine and mount separated at rotation. No evidence of the engine suffering an uncontained engine failure leading to its separation from the aircraft. This was a mount issue, not an engine problem.
This is beyond the worse case scenario. Even if you told pilots what would happen, I doubt many, if at all any, could fly the airplane at max gross takeoff, with the sudden departure and fire of that engine. The sudden roll and yaw combined with the loss of thrust, wing damage and out of control fire would take every ounce of skill a pilot could muster. We practice all the time for engine failures at rotation. The wing damage and fire in the wing are the straws that broke the camel's back.


The National Transportation Safety Board says fatigue cracking within the left engine pylon structure is a key focus of its investigation into the crash of UPS Flight 2976, according to a preliminary report released Thursday.

The MD-11F went down shortly after takeoff from Louisville, Kentucky (KSDF), on November 4, killing all three crewmembers and 11 people on the ground.

Airport surveillance video reviewed by NTSB investigators shows the No. 1 engine and pylon separating from the wing moments after rotation.




“A fire ignited near the area of the left pylon attachment to the wing, which continued until ground impact,” the report states.

The aircraft climbed briefly but “did not get higher than about 30 ft above ground level,” according to flight-data recorder (FDR) information.

Fatigue Cracking

The NTSB’s materials laboratory found evidence of fatigue cracking on multiple fracture surfaces of the left pylon’s aft-mount lugs. According to the report, “examination of the left pylon aft mount lug fractures found evidence of fatigue cracks in addition to areas of overstress failure.”

On the aft lug, investigators observed a “fatigue crack…where the aft lug bore met the aft lug forward face.” The forward lug’s inboard fracture surface also showed that “fatigue cracks were observed along the lug bore,” while the forward lug’s outboard fracture consisted entirely of overstress with no fatigue indications.

Investigators also documented a circumferential fracture of the spherical bearing that connects the aft mount to the wing. The report notes that the “spherical bearing outer race had fractured circumferentially, exposing the ball element,” though the bearing and hardware remained attached to the wing clevis recovered at the site.

Wreckage from the aircraft was scattered across buildings and a storage yard south of the airport, with the separated upper portions of the pylon lugs and fan-blade fragments recovered on or near Runway 17R.
New images of UPS accident [Credit: NTSB]The aircraft had accumulated approximately 92,992 hours and 21,043 cycles. Visual inspections of the left pylon aft mount were last completed in October 2021, and required lubrication of the thrust links and spherical bearings was completed in October 2025. Certain special detailed inspections tied to higher cycle thresholds were not yet due for this airplane.

UPS grounded its MD-11 fleet on November 7 following a recommendation from Boeing. The FAA subsequently issued two emergency airworthiness directives—initially grounding all MD-11 aircraft, then expanding the order to include DC-10 models because of their similar pylon configuration.

American 191 Accident

In the preliminary report, the NTSB also references the 1979 crash of American Airlines Flight 191, noting that the DC-10 involved in that accident experienced a separation of the left engine and pylon assembly during takeoff. The agency highlights the event as a “similar” historical case in which the engine-pylon structure detached from the wing.

Both the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and FDR were recovered with usable data. The NTSB says its investigation remains ongoing and that all preliminary findings are subject to change.

 

Wow. It looks pretty clear from those images too. For the engine to first try to take off and move forward with no visible flame or damage, it kind of had to still be producing thrust when it detached from the wing. Then of course, fuel was cut as it tore away and it became shrapnel which slowed and then the rear section of the plane contacted it. So not only an engine lost at the worst possible moment but then it took out a 2nd engine. No way anyone was recovering from that

 

You may recall the United Airlines Flight 232, which occurred on July 19, 1989, when the aircraft suffered a catastrophic engine failure, leading to a crash landing at Sioux Gateway Airport. Of the 296 people on board, 112 lost their lives, but the incident is noted for the successful crew management that helped save many others. The reason I mention that is that was a DC-10. the forerunner of the MD-11. It suffered an uncontained engine failure of the number two or tail engine that severed critical hydraulic lines. Those lines, unlike military aircraft taking fire, were bundled close together running down from the tail engine's hydraulic pumps to the rest of the aircraft. You can lose combinations of engines but normally, you still have control with the other sources of hydraulic power. In that case, the lines were cut, and like a carotid artery bleed out, that DC-10 lost all hydraulic control. To fix that problem, there was a redesign that added a cutoff for the hydraulics in the event of physical damage.

This damage on the UPS MD-11 was beyond repair but even then, hydraulics would have been available for seconds after the incident. The aerodynamic problem of a flaming hole in the leading edge of the wing which is required for takeoff lift along with the loss of both engines, is insurmountable. If the area beyond the runway was clear and level, it might have been survivable with the airplane settling into the ground with the gear down. Maybe, but it is speculation.

 

Note how the #1 (left) engine ends up on the right side of the runway. The torque stress on the engine on rotation is amazing.

-- Chuck

 

Nowadays there is a process called finite element analysis or FEA.
FEA is very computer intensive. Of course they didn't have it back in the days of DC-10 /MD-11 design era.
It would be interesting if someone could run it now.
I saw a glimpse of a clip that show a broken linkage assembly.
I couldn't confirm what it came from.
but simply put,we can 'see' things now that we never could before.

I suck at the stock market, but with so many planes grounded it has to be affecting UPS ability to handle shipments, especially coming into the holidays.
Looking forward, if UPS needs to replace their fleet, that could have a profound effect on the bottom line.
Of course the market looks up for UPS today. go figure. This is why I hate the market.