Death Cruiser Flight Crew
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Vaucluse, France.
Posts: 613
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To my knowledge, the DC-10 never suffered a heavy landing in Monarch service. (It suffered a lot of other things including being hit by ground servicing vehicles with monotonous regularity!)The 'Previous Owners' stalled it at high altitude, due to climbing it in Vert Speed on the autopilot. Whether this was the cause of the hairline cracks in the tailplane spar is a moot point. However, it was deemed allowable up to the next D check, which it was due. In the aftermath of Sept 11 and with the check costing £1.2 million, or somesuch, the decision was made to ground the aircraft. All the crew who worked on it loved it, perhaps less so the ground engineers! Also, it did have its detractors high up in the company.