We see the fan assembly and case sitting on the airport next to the runway all banged up but otherwise intact and with no signs of fire on it. We also see the fanless engine core with lots of signs of fire, also still laying on the airport grounds.
There have been other failures of the CF6 engine type where, loosely speaking, “the front fell off”. This has been precipitated by the fan drive shaft failing at the forward bearing ultimately due to various manufacturing or assembly errors or lubrication failure. That part falling off pretty well ensures starting a fire. Fan loss doesn’t guarantee the engine rips off the plane, nor does it guarantee a crash. But it does make for an exciting day at work. This one also happened at a very bad time in the flight. Had it occurred e.g. 3 minutes later, perhaps the situation could have been salvaged to a safe landing. Perhaps.
However in this case we see the remaining engine did rip off early enough in the accident sequence to also have bounced and slid to a stop alongside the runway. As the engine did fall off, it certainly severed the fuel line leading to it, providing plenty of fuel supply for a raging fire. Which raging fire we can see in the initial vid within @3AxisCtrl’s cite as the airplane rotates for takeoff. And may well have ripped up some of the wing on the way out. Which raging fire we can see as the airplane rotates for takeoff in the initial vid within @3AxisCtrl’s cite.
This event is quite reminiscent of this 1979 DC-10 accident (American Airlines Flight 191 - Wikipedia), other than this one started earlier in the takeoff roll so they didn’t get but barely airborne before control was lost. In that earlier case, the engine fell off intact for a different reason, but on the way out tore out hydraulics which caused the leading edge slats to retract, instantly stalling the wing on that side and inducing uncontrollable roll. The security cam video doesn’t quite show enough wing to see that, but the similarity is obvious.
The DC-10 and MD-11 share a lot of commonality. Including the CF-6 engine type, albeit a different sub-model.
Every flight school chooses area(s) they call “the practice area(s)”. Different schools pick different areas to try to deconflict their planes and reduce the odds of a midair while each airplane is concentrating on its own flying.
Which area(s) are where all that schools’ planes go to just doodle around practicing whatever. Which may be ground reference maneuvers or stalls or … The key point being that from the ground you see light airplanes repeatedly loitering and doing seemingly pointless stuff over one area of town.
The areas are usually at least a couple miles on a side and are chosen to be out of the way of the normal traffic flows to/from all the airports in the area, away from any enroute corridors, and to be readily recognizable from the air. In parts of the country that have experienced significant suburban growth, a practice area that was farmland or forest 20 (or 50!) years ago when designated by the school is now solid suburbia.
Beyond that not much more can be said about your particular area.
If you were seriously curious, you could pleasantly waste a Saturday by driving to the nearby lightplane fields and stopping in at the various flight schools to ask.
That “Not” is a typo: it should read “Note”. Engine fires generally continue producing thrust, albeit not perhaps full thrust. Sometimes not, but most times yes.
As my subsequent comments upthread have it, in this case the engine was on the ground while the airplane was in the air, so no thrust from that one this time.
Captain Steve had his last flight a couple weeks ago. Mandatory retirement age 65.
Does it make sense for the FAA to retire highly experienced Airline pilots? If they’re still able to pass a flight physical? Especially with the shortages today.
Steve started in the Navy. He was scheduled on the 9/11 flight as First Officer. He got bumped by a more senior pilot.
The law is the law. Only Congress can change the law. FAA just writes regs that comply with the law.
The FAAs big legit concern is sudden incapacitation. That’s often by way of stroke or heart attack. It is very difficult to predict that by an ordinary physical exam, but the statistics for the general public are clear that increasing age all by itself is a major risk factor and the probabilities get bigger faster the older you get past age 60. Much less past 65. Just like with how they certificate airplane components, they demand a certain level of reliability and when the reliability cannot be guaranteed to be that good, the part is replaced whether it’s malfunctioning yet or not. Pilots are just one more replaceable part on the airplane in that sense. But a rather key part.
The quality of flight physicals as performed in the field is not that great. They’re done by private MDs who have a special qualification from the FAA. At every airline pilot base there’s a list of the local docs who will pass you if you’re alive enough to sign the credit card slip. That’s hyperbole, but not huge hyperbole.
The FAA is not interested in taking over the massive job of administering a half-million physicals a year using government employees who could be tightly managed to a particular quality standard. If Congress would give them the budget to hire that army of techs, physicians, and admins, and open and equip that nationwide network of clinics. Fat chance of that even back when Congress was functional.
Slightly distracting that his animations are using a 777-300. And the FMS’s show a software load for a 747-8i. But close enough.
He makes a comment about a VR speed around 135-140 Knots. I don’t have MD11 manuals, but that sounds a bit slow to me. It’d be right in the ballpark for an e.g. 777 or A330 though. Which are the same size airplanes as the MD11. The MD-11, like the 737, is (in)famous for fast takeoff and landing speeds. As he rightly points out, the speed traces from the ADS-B readout are a bit suspect. Both airspeed and altitude read higher that real to me. But I bet his 135-140 is a low WAG. My anally extracted WAG? V1of 155, VR of 160.
Towards the end of the vid he mentions various news reports which suggest the airplane hit a fuel tank or fuel farm pretty early in the impact sequence. He doesn’t directly debunk that, but he does sound quite skeptical, saying the fuel on board was plenty for that big of a fireball, and no ground based additional fuel source is needed to get the results we see.
A quick look at Google maps confirms there are no fuel storage tanks anywhere near where the crash occurred. So I agree w him, that bit of “news” is groundless speculation.
All in all a darn good vid about a darn bad situation. Damned shame to lose 3 good pilots that way. Plus whoever was killed sitting in their cars or offices or warehouses when a flaming airplane suddenly blew through their room.
I don’t think his original assessment is correct and will probably change after he’s had time to look at all the videos and data. As will everybody’s.
1st. The video he’s referring too can’t have the engine still attached. the area above the wing (in proximity of the engine) is on fire. But if the picture of the engine is real then it’s near the end of the runway (based on the tower behind it). When it came off it was moving at the speed of V1. Not sure how far it traveled but it has to be before it’s final resting spot.
I don’t think the gash in the building was from the wing. When wings dig in they tend to induce a tumbling action driving the nose down. The subsequent video’s show the nose still higher than the tail and the start of a rotation left.
I suspect the tail hit the top of the building and dug a trench. This would slow the plane down and accelerate the roll with the lift of the right engine.
There also appears to be a compressor stall of the # 2 engine in the runway video. There’s a single flare-up out the back while on the runway. I don’t know if that is the case but it will turn up when the black boxes are examined.
So we’re left with a loss of engine at rotation that could easily have damaged critical control surfaces. Without compressor stalls the plane is rotating with 2/3 power at time of rotation. To increase speed the pilot has to lower the nose but there’s a building in the way that they’re trying to clear.
We don’t have an age limit here in New Zealand as it doesn’t comply with our age discrimination legislation. The biggest issue, in my opinion, with letting people fly for as long as they have a medical, is that the medical testing isn’t designed to pick up the kinds of problems that afflict older people, eg dementia or just general cognitive decline.
It was a petroleum recycling facility with a cluster of smaller tanks, not a huge fuel farm or anything. In this video it looks like they might be what took off the left wing.
This notice is on the USPS tracking page right now:
“Delivery of your mail and packages may be delayed because your mail and packages were inadvertently converted into soggy carbonized lumps in this incident.”
What are the logistical impacts to the airlines of the government slowdown of # of flights?
I assume they are used to dealing with something like this in the short term due to weather-related cxls but this looks to be longer term than the one, two, or maybe three days when thunderstorms, snow storms, or a hurricane would knock out part of the country from flying.
I wonder who it is who makes the decision which flights to cancel. When there are thunderstorms, the airlines have to work around the weather. Now, they may be able to pick and choose. Are the least profitable flights getting cancelled first?
We had been planning to fly BOS-BWI for Thanksgiving week, but are now thinking we have to be prepared to drive. We’ve done it before but the 425-mile trip can take up to 12 hours, depending on traffic through NYC.
Anyone giving odds on what percentage of flights will be canceled Thanksgiving week?
Should we just cancel our tickets now and count on driving? (We’re on Southwest, so can cancel/change with no penalty. For now.)
The lack of traffic controllers in the US can affect Canadian flights. The most direct route for a Toronto-Vancouver flight is over Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and perhaps some other northern states. If parts of that routing become closed to air traffic, the all-Canada route takes about an hour longer.
