DC10/MD11 vs. the rest of the aviation fleet
In aviation, like any other aspect in life, things go wrong, people make mistakes. Aviation, being such a critical venue, safeguards are built in to mitigate these errors from causing catastrophies. Problem is, when McD designed the DC10, they were racing against the clock, the original scheduled intro of the L1011, and doing so on a minimal budget. There were inherent mistakes made and shortcuts taken, some were patched over the years due to accidents and incidents. But I believe the history has shown this design to be not as tolerant or forgiving of those everyday mistakes and failures, and prone to pranging badly over seemingly recoverable circumstances. Many of those accidents reports discuss design shortcuts and flaws vs. the Boeing and Lockheed competitors. Going cheap and in a hurry seems to always catch up with this airframe.