Could the UPS Crash Mean the End of the Boeing-Maintained MD-11?
By the fall of 2025, the MD-11 was already on its way out.
FedEx and UPS, the two largest MD-11 operators at the time, had started to retire the aging McDonnell Douglas-built, Boeing-supported planes in favor of newer, more efficient jets.
Then, in November, a UPS MD-11 crashed while taking off from the company’s hub in Louisville, Ky., killing three crew members and 12 people on the ground. Video showed the plane’s left engine detach, turning the fuselage and engine into fireballs that skidded into nearby buildings.
The November crash was far from the worst in the MD-11's history, but it could accelerate the plane's retirement, leaving an unexpected hole in the cargo market that Boeing may have to scramble to fill. Boeing plans to sunset the Everett-built 767, the most obvious replacement for the MD-11, next year.
Boeing, which took ownership of the MD-11 when it bought McDonnell Douglas in 1997 and is responsible for supporting the jet, recommended just three days after the crash that all MD-11 operators ground the planes.
Nearly five months later, the MD-11 and its predecessor, the DC-10, are still parked. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, and regulators have not indicated what inspections or repairs would be needed to get the planes flying again.
The MD-11’s age and poor fuel efficiency may mean it’s not cost-effective for operators to pay for the required work, said Anthony Brickhouse, an aviation safety expert.
“It’s kind of like a human — we get to a certain age, doctors don’t want to do surgery because it's too risky,” Brickhouse said. “In some situations, it may be better just to not deal with this aircraft anymore.”
The operators are so far divided. UPS retired all 27 of its MD-11s at the end of 2025, while FedEx is optimistic its MD-11 fleet will fly again this year. Western Global, the only other major operator of the MD-11, has not said what it plans.
If the MD-11 doesn't return to the sky, it would mark a hurried retirement for a plane that struggled for most of its history. The MD-11 found its niche later in life as a cargo carrier, but it never outlived early troubles.
“The history books will not be kind to the MD-11,” said John Feren, a former McDonnell Douglas employee and then Boeing executive who helped sell the plane as it was getting started.
A plane that needed a 'diet'
McDonnell Douglas launched the MD-11 in 1986 as an updated version of the DC-10, a Douglas Commercial plane that first flew 15 years earlier.
Because it was a derivative of an older plane rather than a new design, the MD-11 couldn't keep up with its competitors.
Like the DC-10, the MD-11 featured three engines — one underneath each wing and one mounted near the tail. The newer plane had a stretched fuselage, a longer wingspan and winglets, and a “glass cockpit” with more digital controls.
Those longer wings meant the MD-11 didn't fit in McDonnell Douglas' Long Beach, Calif., factory, said Shem Malmquist, an aeronautics professor at the Florida Institute of Technology and a former MD-11 pilot. Lacking the finances to build a new factory, or restructure its existing one, McDonnell Douglas built the MD-11 at a 45-degree angle.
Delayed for months, the first MD-11s weren't able to fly as far or carry as much weight as McDonnell Douglas had promised.
Some of that shortfall was the fault of the engine makers, who didn't produce the efficient engines they had promised. But mostly the plane was overweight. A 1990 Seattle Times article warned that the MD-11 “may need to diet.”
American Airlines, one of the MD-11's earliest adopters, wanted the plane to be “the backbone of their international expansion,” said Scott Hamilton, an aerospace analyst with Leeham News. But the MD-11 couldn't reliably fly from Dallas to Hong Kong, one of American's longest routes.
“It was the McDonnell Douglas way of cheaply doing another airplane, … and it never lived up to its promises,” Hamilton said.
Shortly after McDonnell Douglas delivered its first MD-11, it put the plane on a “performance improvement plan.”
The multiyear PIP made the plane lighter and more efficient, with small changes to its engines, its internal systems and even its windshield wipers. Malmquist said McDonnell Douglas changed the direction its wipers rested when parked to reduce drag.
The PIP worked, getting the MD-11 nearly to its promised capabilities. And, the manufacturer sped up production, delivering planes to customers faster.
But by then, the three-engine plane was competing with Boeing’s 777 and Airbus’ A330, both running on just two engines.
Twin-engine jets had been required to stay within 60 minutes of an airport or shoreline. But in the late 1980s, as engines became more reliable, the Federal Aviation Administration opened the door for twin-engine jets to compete for new airspace.
For airlines, it made financial sense to move away from the MD-11.
The later airplanes came awfully close to meeting expectations," said Feren, the former salesman. By then, though, two-engine airplanes "were ruling the roost."
"There's really no way you could make an economic argument why you would want to burn three engines when you can get away with two," he said.
In 1997, Boeing acquired the financially troubled McDonnell Douglas, its Long Beach production site and the MD-11. A year later, Boeing announced it would stop producing the MD-11, now directly competing with another product from the same company.
The president of Boeing commercial airplanes said at the time there “simply was not enough customer interest.” The 200th and final MD-11 rolled out of the factory in 2001.
Over the next decade, airlines transitioned the MD-11 from passenger to cargo. Dutch airline KLM operated the final MD-11 passenger flight in 2014.
The MD-11's spotty safety record
It’s widely agreed that the decision to end MD-11 production and switch to cargo service was economic, unrelated to the safety of the plane. But it’s also widely agreed that the MD-11 isn’t an easy plane to fly.
“It had the reputation of ‘you really need to be on your A game when you’re landing the airplane,’ ” Feren said.
There’s less agreement on why that is. Some aviation experts who spoke to The Seattle Times said the plane’s center of gravity was farther back than pilots were used to. Others said its stretched fuselage made it difficult to perceive how close the plane was to the ground. Still others said its tail was too small. (Those same experts also disputed some of their colleagues’ theories.)
As Malmquist put it, the MD-11 was “sluggish.”
“I would call it a legacy jet; it handles more like an airplane in the '60s than one designed in the '90s,” he said.
The MD-11 and the DC-10 have some of the highest accident rates of any commercial airplanes, according to annual safety data compiled by Boeing.
From 1959 to 2024, the MD-11 had the second-highest “hull loss” accident rate among the worldwide commercial jet fleet. A hull loss occurs when an aircraft is destroyed. The DC-10 had the third-highest hull loss rate.
The two planes were surpassed only by the F-28, a twin-engine regional jet produced by a Dutch aircraft manufacturer from the 1960s to the 1980s.
When factoring in fatalities, the MD-11 and DC-10 had the third- and fourth-highest accident rates, behind the F-28 and Airbus’ A310, a widebody aircraft that first flew in 1982 and competed with Boeing’s 767.
The deadliest MD-11 crash occurred in September 1998 when a Swissair plane crashed off Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people on board. Investigators determined faulty wiring sparked a fire near the cockpit.
Industry experts and the NTSB have compared the UPS MD-11 crash in November to an American Airlines DC-10 crash in May 1979 in Chicago. In that case, the left engine fell off and the plane rolled to the left, crashing in an open field and killing 273 people. Investigators determined the engine had not been properly secured to the wing during previous maintenance work.
The NTSB is still investigating November's MD-11 crash but said in a preliminary report it found “fatigue cracks” and “overstress” failure in a piece of hardware on the pylon, a structure that holds the engine to the wing.
In January, the NTSB said Boeing had previously warned operators of four instances in which that same piece of hardware had failed. Boeing's 2011 letter to operators had said the failures did not pose a safety risk.
The crash killed three UPS pilots, Capt. Richard Wartenberg, First Officer Lee Truitt and International Relief Officer Capt. Dana Diamond, as well as a dozen people who were at a nearby auto parts business and petroleum recycling warehouse.
The families of those who died have sued Boeing, UPS and engine maker GE Aerospace. In February, Diamond's wife sued Boeing, GE and a maintenance provider, alleging the companies were responsible for the crash.
"This tragedy was an absolute betrayal of everything (Diamond) stood for," Sam Taylor, a lawyer with the Lanier Law Firm representing Diamond's family, said in a statement. The lawsuit could bring to light more about what went wrong, Taylor said, and help "prevent a reoccurrence."
A suitable cargo replacement
The industry is divided on whether the MD-11 will fly again.
Chad Kendall, an aviation professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver and an FAA instructor, said it won’t “disappear overnight” but does expect carriers to repurpose the fleet. Rather than carrying cargo, the planes could be used for aerial firefighting, he said. To Kendall, the November crash showed a "design vulnerability" but does not indicate the MD-11 "suddenly became an unsafe airplane."
William Waldock, an aircraft accident investigator and professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, was more definitive. Asked if the crash would mark the end of the MD-11, Waldock said, “if I was a betting man, I’d bet on that.”
Richard Smith, a FedEx executive, was adamant in the opposite direction. "I am confident that we are on a path to returning these aircraft safely to service over the course of this fiscal year," he told investors in February. FedEx still expects to retire its 28 MD-11s over the next six years.
It’s not clear what will happen to the MD-11s UPS has already retired. The planes could continue to fly cargo for another airline. They could be repurposed for other uses. Or, they could be spliced up and sold as parts.
UPS is still determining “the disposition” of the retired planes, spokesperson Michelle Polk said in an emailed statement.
The recent holiday shipping season was a "real-world test" of how the company would perform without the MD-11 in its fleet, Polk said. Its “success” allowed UPS to "confidently accelerate retirements."
The company is replacing its retired MD-11s, which made up about 9% of its aircraft fleet, with new 767s from Boeing, company executives said in January. UPS expects to receive 15 767s this year and another three next year.
The long-term replacement for the MD-11 is still an unanswered question. Boeing dominates the cargo market, providing 90% of global freighter capacity, but its European rival Airbus is preparing to ramp up its competition. Airbus plans to start delivering its A350F, a fuel-efficient widebody cargo plane, in 2027.
Boeing, meanwhile, is ending 767 commercial production next year and faces a looming environmental deadline that could force the end of its other widebody freighter, the 777. Boeing's fuel-efficient replacement from its 777X family, the 777-8F, is years behind schedule and has yet to be certified by the FAA.
In December, Boeing asked the FAA for permission to produce 35 more 777 freighters, even though the planes would not meet global emissions standards, while it waits for 777X certification. The manufacturer received a similar five-year reprieve from environmental standards for its 767 in 2024, six months before it announced plans to end production.
In March, Boeing's Chief Financial Officer Jay Malave said Boeing would consider designing a freighter version of its 787 widebody plane as a replacement for the 767, though that decision wouldn't be imminent. "Right now, we've got enough on our plate," Malave said, speaking at a financial conference. "The investment there is not insignificant."
Stephen Rimmer, the CEO of aviation finance firm Altavair, said UPS’ decision to retire its MD-11 fleet was about more than the deadly crash. The carrier is in the midst of restructuring its business, including plans to cut 30,000 jobs this year, and will reflect those changes in its aircraft "assets.
When it comes to the future of the MD-11 for FedEx and Western Global, Rimmer believes the decision is largely in the hands of Boeing.
The manufacturer must decide if it wants to continue supporting the MD-11 with maintenance and spare parts, and if it wants to take on the reputational risk of another crash. A Boeing spokesperson said the company continues to support its planes in service.
The support costs are “quantifiable,” Rimmer said. “The unquantifiable is how comfortable is Boeing letting the MD-11 keep flying?”
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