Apologies if this is covered already but this is an extraordinary recurrence of a familiar problem, and it is common to MD11 and DC10. I was once told the technical details but essentially there is something radically wrong with the ability of the MLG to handle lateral loads. This type of crash has been seen for over 20 years now - hard bounce, touch again, MLG snaps, the rolling momentum upwards breaks off the wing and it flops on its back. The hull loss rate of the MD11 is simply staggering and much as it may be delightful to fly, has any other a/c type had so many disastrous crashes of exactly the same kind? Planes crash for all sorts of reasons but the number of times precisely this has happened to MD11s/DC10s is huge -- without looking it up it must be a good seven or eight.