From the factual docket....RH gear touchdown was at approximately 870 FPM with a 6 degree crab. Elevator did not move prior to touchdown.
Interesting sidenote....in this case, the RH gear failed - broke off right at the schraeder valve area. In the MD-11 accidents (EWR, Hong Kong), the wing box failed.
Memphis newspaper report:
Pilots blamed in FedEx crash
Safety investigators cite faulty landing in '03 incident
By Hilary Roxe
Associated Press
May 18, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The pilot of a FedEx cargo jet that caught fire after landing
at Memphis International Airport in December 2003 was largely responsible
for the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
The board also found that the flight captain, who was evaluating the pilot,
failed to adequately monitor and correct her landing.
The pilot, First Officer Robyn S. Sclair, didn't do enough to account for
gusty winds and sufficiently slow the plane as it approached the airport.
She brought down the Boeing MD10 slightly to the right of the runway's
center line.
The faulty landing overtaxed the right main landing gear, causing it to
collapse, and the plane caught fire after it veered off the runway,
investigators said.
Besides the two pilots, five FedEx pilots were riding to Memphis as
passengers. All seven escaped through cockpit windows after a passenger
inadvertently released an inflatable escape slide from the side of the
aircraft.
Two people, including Sclair, were injured.
Sclair was undergoing a company-mandated evaluation from Capt. Richard W.
Redditt after deviating from an assigned altitude over England a month
earlier. NTSB reports showed she received two unsatisfactory ratings on MD11
aircraft in 1999 and 2001. Those scores went up after she received more
training.
But Sclair's story led the board to recommend creating oversight and
training programs for crew members who showed deficiencies or experienced
failures in training environments.
"If you took a look at the person as a whole, you may find a pattern that .
. . this person may have some deficiencies that can be, in fact, improved
and be corrected before they get into a situation like we've seen here,"
said Mark Rosenker, acting NTSB chairman.
Investigators also found crew members hadn't received adequate training on
how to handle exit slides. The board recommended providing more hands-on
learning and ensuring training equipment matches the slides used on actual
planes.
"All of the training programs highlighted have been updated since the
accident," said FedEx spokeswoman Kristin Krause.
Krause said Redditt has retired and Sclair is on leave from the company.
Capt. Gary Janelli, a representative of the Air Line Pilots Association,
said the report should have given more weight to wind conditions and
Sclair's lack of recent MD10 training.
"She had conducted only three landings in an MD10 in last seven months, and
the most recent was two days prior," said Janelli, a FedEx MD11 pilot based
in Anchorage, Alaska.
All her other landings had been in MD11s.
Although the MD11 and MD10 are the same type of aircraft, "they handle
differently," Janelli said.
While FedEx's initial training includes time in MD10s and MD11s, there is
"no required follow-on training in the MD10," he said.
"The handling characteristics are different enough that we would like to see
training in both airplanes," Janelli said.
The plane was flying from Oakland, Calif., on the last leg of a four-day
trip. Fatigue was ruled out as a factor in the accident, as was the weather,
though wind shear advisories were in effect that day.
Investigators said it was not clear how the fire started, but flames
consumed the right wing and charred the side of the plane.