Part of a wing of a Federal Express jumbo jet fell off Friday morning and landed in the parking lot of a North Fort Worth apartment complex. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that a panel from the upper left wing of an MD-11 fell from the plane as it was inbound to Alliance Airport shortly after 1 a.m.
I am wondering how this falling panel missed hitting the LOWER left wing on its way down. Musta been a miracle, I guess. .....
The complete news blurb available at this LINK HERE ........
Wondering if this "biplane" version of the MD-11 allows FX to have a greater MTOW and thus outdo UPS, et al on gross lift?
Sorry, that site requires registration, but notwithstanding that, I fail to see how the loss of what sounds like a spoiler panel makes the MD11 a biplane? If it was sucked into one of the engines, that would do it, but it doesn't sound too serious (although those on the ground would probably think differently).
Also, if it was a panel on the upper wing surface, it would have been whipped off so quickly it wouldn't have had time to hit anything on the lower surface.
They'll just have to courier the part back to Memphis . . . possibly on UPS!
akerosid - Sorry about the registration thing. Below is the artical in its entirety:
"Part of jetliner lands in FW complex
02:42 PM CST on Friday, February 6, 2004
From Staff Reports
Part of a wing of a Federal Express jumbo jet fell off Friday morning and landed in the parking lot of a North Fort Worth apartment complex.
A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that a panel from the upper left wing of a Boeing MD-10 fell from the plane as it was inbound to Alliance Airport shortly after 1 a.m.
FedEx Flight 1104, which took off from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. with a crew of three pilots, landed safely. "I think they were unawaware that it had happened because they landed the plane perfectly," said FedEx spokeswoman Kristin Krause.
Witnesses called police to the Retreat Apartments in the 6100 block of North Beach Street after finding a 7-by-2 foot panel in the parking lot. Officers took the airplane part to nearby Alliance.
"We're happy no one was injured," Krause said. "It happened at a fortuitous time in the middle of the night."
John Clabes of the FAA said this is a very unusual occurrence. It is under investigtion by the agency's Flight Standards Office at Alliance.
No one was hurt in the incident.
The MD-10 is an updated version of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 tri-jet. FedEx operates more than 20 MD-10s with plans for a fleet of 89. A FedEx MD-10 caught fire while landing at its hub in Memphis, Tenn. in December. There were no serious injuries.
The FedEx hub at Alliance Airport opened in 1997, and is one of the package delivery firm's major regional operations in the United States.
WFAA-TV Fort Worth bureau chief Barbara Griffith and Dallas Web staff writer Walt Zwirko contributed to this report."
Well now, being an untrained aviation person, and maybe a poor reader of the English language, I sort of thought that the "upper" would be the "upper side of the wing, and the "lower" would be the bottom side of the same wing.
Is it really true that the English have no sense of humour? ....
"Is it really true that the English have no sense of humour?"
Probably; but then the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish probably make up for it. When will you colonials learn that the United Kingdom and England are not the same thing?
Just a "typo" folks, don't get yer pants all bunched up ....
Since the FX planes fly directly over my house on their approach to 17L here at DFW, I do know the diff between the models. At about 1500 ft AMSL (leavin out the comma so I don't get so much stick about a period instead). ...
