As I understand it the aircraft had been with the company a week and was the first MD11 they had operated. The pilots may have been experienced on type, but whose procedures were they using and indeed how current were they? Or to put it more directly how many MD11 sectors had the handling pilot flown in the last 90 days? Combine this with some dodgy loading or performance calculation and you get a possible scenario.

Condolences
 

I think its really sad that everyone jumps to conclusions about what did / didnt happen. What they should / shouldnt have done.
What they were / werent carrying.

Can we all just give a thought to the people at home whose loved ones arent going to be coming home - ever.

Maybe give a thought to what was maybe going through those pilots minds at that critical time.

Hopefully they didnt suffer and may they all RIP. Deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones, especially with Xmas coming up and if they were American, Thanksgiving.

I cannot begin to think what is was like for them and being in aviation myself .........

To many experts on here why not wait till the real experts decide what happened

Why indeed - no one has ever waited before - Are you suggesting something different because of known facts?

MD-11 incident/accident record.

Aviation safety network is your friend.

The Emery link above shows how the news reports get it wrong. They reported a load shift when the real cause of the accident, taking the lives of three good men, was an improperly installed elevator.

Freight crews will always fly aircraft that have seen their best days. It's incumbent on them to pay close attention to every detail affecting the condition of the aircraft. In days gone, or going, by, the FE was the key man. Now, in the case of the MD-11, the FO is the last piece of swiss cheese, doing the walk around, cargo inspection, and checking the logbook, paying particular attention to recent history.

We all rely on each other to do our jobs as pros. If one link breaks, we're all in danger.

Those guys in China may have been the best pilots out there. There is no qualitative difference between the captain flying for a scumbag operator and the (lucky) captain flying for a primo airline. This I know, having flown for both.

Amigo, all the incidents you cite involved LANDING mishaps. This tragic ZSPD incident, the one in question, was a takeoff problem; pure & simple. The MD-11 is an awesome, capable and worthy "piece of kit" with an honorable, enviable record. Your blaming the MD-11 for the mishaps you cite is like Rosie O'Donnell blaming the spoon for her obesity.

In capable, trained hands, the MD-11 is a jewel. Transparently, you've not flown one.

May God bless Pinedog, Saul & Shaun, comfort their families, and may He speed Bill to recovery.

You must be thinking of this Fine Air 101

Incorrectly reported at the time as a load shift, the NTSB determined that the load could not possibly have shifted since all pallet positions were occupied and there was nowhere for the load to shift to! As has already been said, pre Christmas flights ex PVG to Europe would almost certainly be full making this an unlikely scenario.

This is precisely why speculation at this stage after an accident can be detrimental to safety. Both the Fine Air and Emery accidents were speculated to have been load shifts but the causes turned out to be very different, elevator bell crank failure in the Emery case and incorrect loading (and therefore stabiliser setting) in the Fine air case.

Just ignore Stilton. He knows absolutely nothing about the MD-11. The FedEx NRT accident investigation conclusion hasn't been released yet (unless you have inside info) the LH hard landing in MEX is no argument, plenty of other types have suffered hard landings with structural damage and if you already know the cause of the PVG accident then please share it with us. I don't actually think you are from planet earth.:ugh::ugh::ugh:

The MD11 may or not be a fine aeroplane from the pilot's perspective. Fact is that it does have a much higher accident and incident rate than most other modern jets. Lies, damn lies, statistics etc....but putting it simply if the rate were applied to the jet I fly then around 120 pilots would have been killed and 60 aircraft completely destroyed in the last year alone. Another 60 aircraft would have been seriously damaged over the same time period. With a couple of exceptions most passenger airlines have withdrawn them from service. I think most people in possession of the facts would agree that there does seem to be something of a pattern.

As things stand now, Finnair is retiring the last MD-11 from service on Feb 1 next year. In other words, one less airline with passenger ops with it.

We've got 62.

And ~80 MD-10's.

They'll be around for a long time.

...and if you tried to load 737 with typical MD-11 load, you would break it on the apron. If you tried to fly 737 at typical MD-11 route, you would have the oportunity to test your deadstick skills. Are you really comparing like and like?

We don't blame 737 design for Silk Air, for Adam Air, for Helios, for Aeroflot Nord... Don't just look at the stats, check the accident reports, there are only five of them so far. Refreshing as it might be to see PPRUNers bash an aeroplane that is not FBW Airbus, it is wrong nevertheless.

So MD-11 doesn't like throwing yoke from 70 percent nose-up to 67 percent nose down in flare, she won't be happy with 1200 fpm touchdowns in crosswinds over limit, dives from 4500 are going to be detrimental to crews health in her and she has particular dislike for pilots that don't bother to identify correctly reading ASI. Other than that she is heavy, fast , sensitive and quite handful. But a) she is FAA certified b)there are about 180 of them still active and on any given day they will make at least thirty and maybe a hundred uneventful flights. So, yes, she can be flown safely.

The only scheduled passenger fleet left operating after this time will be the 10 at KLM. This for a mainstream type which went out of production only 9 years ago. Premature value writeoffs in the accounts of those airlines who chose it run into billions of dollars.

Nothing like this has happened in the industry before with large aircraft, even the 3-crew, 3-engine DC10/L1011 served a full lifetime of operation after the 2-crew 2-engine equivalent capacity types came along. This is why it is worth discussing. To draw a comparison, the last L1011 was built in 1983, and the manufacturer then left the civil market. But by 1992 the bulk of the fleet of 250 was still operating mainstream passenger services.

I'd like to know what the insurance rates are for a passenger MD11 compared to an equal age B777.

KLM had the intention of retiring the MD11 about 7 years ago. However they couldn't sell them to anyone for a reasonable price. As the leases of their 767's were expiring, they held on to the MD's and switched the 767's with new airbus A330's. The MD's are getting pretty old.

MD-11F
 

Huck, is FEDEX still looking for MD-11's to convert ? UPS?
Just curious, not passing judgement on the plane
Thanks
20driver

dont mention the L 1011 please! you know what might happen.......

I had a bit of difficulty following the logic of your post Clandestino then I looked at something you wrote in another thread about yourself:
'my stupefying ineptitude at critical reasoning'.
I think that sums up your last contribution pretty well. The size of the aircraft and its route structure is missing the point.

In the last eight months two MD11s have been written off and at least two seriously damaged. A total of 200 were built. Obviously there are less in service now counting the four previous write-offs and those being repaired or in storage. But keeping it simple 2/200 is one percent. There are around 6000 Boeing 737s. Yes they do crash, but apparently not at the same rate as MD11s. If we knew why there is such a difference, it might allow a few more colleagues to spend Xmas with their loved ones to use the emotive language of our cabin crew correspondent a few posts earlier.

Yes. We bought and converted two in 2009.

MD11's were taken out of pax service earlier than historical average because of the 777. It was launched 6 years later. It did a better, more efficient job with one less engine.

But the same heavy, "old-school" fuselage that made the pax version burn too much gas made the MD11 an awesome freighter. Just look at the BCF on the 777 - or the A330 freighter design changes. The MD11 was overbuilt. The 777/A330 were not.

Not aware of any pax B772s that have become BCFs [Boeing Converted Freighters] . . .yet.

The B772Fs seen in operation so far all appear to be pure factory freighters . . .without the window plugs and doors of would be converted pax airframes. :confused:

As far as I'm aware there is no current active 777BCF programme, although i do hear that a large purple freight carrier are talking to Boeing about one.

Lederhosen: Your push to compare MD-11F (sub-type) & 737 (all types) accident rates in a randomly selected period of time leads to the logical fallacy of assuming that correlation equals causation.

The Boeing 777 BCF is in full swing and has been pushed up to around 2012 for first flight. We've already bought slots. You heard it here first.

Actually Machaca, 200 is the total production run for all MD11 variants. The last year is as good a period as any to take and I am pretty confident that by any measure, for example hull losses per total flight hours from entry into service against any modern jet, the diva as we call her in Germany, is high on the list of accident prone jets. Rubbishing the data is most people's first reaction to something they do not believe in. I have no axe to grind. I am making no assumptions, just pointing out that as a highly trained professional your chance of crashing or being involved in a serious incident has in the past been higher with this particular jet. There are other aircraft, the meteor and starfighter would be good examples in the military, where a concerted push has improved a dismal record.

Fact is, even before these two latest hull losses, the accident rate of the MD-11 (pax and freight combined) was inferior to all models of the 737. The statistical accident rate comparison prepared by Boeing, which takes into account the number of departures made by each aircraft type worldwide between 1959 and 2008, shows that the hull loss accident rate of the MD-11 up to 2008 was:
- twice the rate of the 737-100/200
- 5 times the rate of the 737-300/400/500
.. and about a hundred times the rate of the newest 737 models.

See pdf page 22 here: http://www.boeing.com/news/techissues/pdf/statsum.pdf

.. but of course there will always be those who don´t appreciate statistics, whoever prepared them, Boeing or not.

Unfortunately you cannot confuse some people with facts. It seems misplaced loyalty to an inanimate, unforgiving poorly designed machine is more important than an unbiased objective view of the MD11's accident history.


This 'jewel of an Aircraft' will simply continue to crash or be involved in serious accidents and incidents until at least one Airworthiness authority revokes it's C of A, or a crash involving large numbers of fatalities.


What do you think would happen if, for example passenger carrying B777's started to crash or were involved in serious accidents at the same rate as the MD11, or one every few months (the same thing)


A record like that would never be acceptable to the FAA, CAA or other certifying body. The only reason this Aircraft has 'got away with it' for so long is the nature of it's mostly Freighter operation where sadly the 'only' fatalities and injuries have been the very unfortunate crewmembers.

The recorders have been sent to Beijing for analysis:

Eastday-Pudong crash boxes get more analysis

If the md11 has such bad stats, which it does, and its pilots agreeing that its a handful to fly, then theres a problem. Not all pilots will have the superior skill of other pilots hence why these accidents occur at an alarming rate considering the very few in the air. Love it or hate it, it could well be considered a dangerous airplane, considering how unforgiving it is.

%&#* the political correctness!
 

Pilots who can't handle the specific aeroplane, shouldn't be flying it. Applicable to anything, from Airbike to Concorde. It's simple in principle, difficult to apply, bites back if disregarded.

Funny to mention the Concord.
In the morning of July 25th 2000, it was the only passenger aircraft without a loss and statically the safest airplane in the world operating for almost 30 years. By the same evening it was deemed the worst passenger-airplane ever in service!

Stilton,

Do you actually think that because nearly all remaining MD-11s in service are in freighter role actually makes any difference at all to what any national authority thinks? There's no "getting away" with anything as you put it. If they felt the need to withdraw the CofA, ground it etc they would. Full stop. The requirements are the same. Naive or what.

Thank you for illustrating my point, Nubian. There was even one aeroplane that was statistically far, far worse than Concorde. It was A320 on the evening of June 26th 1988. And then there was passenger jet that never crashed during its entire career; Dassault Mercure. A320s are commonplace today, while no Mercure is active. Go figure.

Dear PPRuNers, some of you are putting forward the arguments similar to the following:

Premise A: MD-11 has worse accident statistics than B737

Premise B: Aeroplane that has worse accident statistics than B737 is dangerous.

Conclusion: MD-11 is dangerous.

The logic of the argument is impeccable. However, the conlusion is false, as the premise B is false and represents the misuse of statistics. Last year is not as "good a period as any" as there were no MD-11 incidents or accidents. This year? Very significant for anyone unaware of the meaning of the word "streak" in statistics. Statistics can point to areas requiring further examination but most of the time cannot be relied on to provide definite answers by itself.

Recommended reading: Carl Sagan: "Significance Junkies", Darell Huff: "How to lie with statistics"


If we knew.... well if you did bother to read reports, you would know the causes of every MD-11 accident bar the last two, as the investigation teams are still working on them! Do you really have no incentive to look them up?!? Would you like to be spoon-fed? OK, let's go:

First there was FedEx at Newark
Then there was SR111; using MPETs was design error which had no bearing on aeroplane's handling and would probably go undetected if it wasn't for slopilly concieved and executed instalation of IFE.

Korean at Shanghai:

After that it was China Airlines at Chek Lap Kok


Fast forward to Subic Bay:
4 out of 5 losses mainly attributable to pilot error. Take note: errors committed were largely not type specific, they were more indication of wanting airmanship. Read the reports and learn; lessons might be pertinent to you even if you are not MD-11 pilot.

Dear Lederhosen, if your Bobby has Kranich on her tail, then I can understand your Angst beim Elfer. However, I'm really not amused by you and your colleagues 1) making dubious statements based on less than firm grip on statistics 2) accusing posters that don't agree with you for:

Such a statements are (to my despair) acceptable in modern politics. What we're discussing is aviation. Mix of the two never produced satisfactory results.

So is the MD-11 dangerous? Hell, yes! She's 250t+ and goes down the glide at 150kt, there are not many people in the world that can handle this. Those who can are called "MD-11 pilots" and every day they prove that the beast can be tamed. All of you believing that being a pilot is easy money are dead wrong. When this notion permeates the flightdecks, we'll be truly and deeply :mad:ed.

Well said [written], Clandestino. Problem is that it seems like nowadays pilots want the airplane to fly itself without their input. That's what all this 'automation' has led to unfortunately. People have forgotten basic flying skills and assume they can just jump into any aircraft and fly it. I'm not saying that is the case here. We'll just have to wait and see what the investigators come up with on this one.

Clandestino I enjoy a good debate and you have put a lot of effort into your last reply, so despite your tone I will respond. Have you read Finn47's post and looked at the Boeing statistics for all recent jets?

The MD11 has a demonstrably worse record than any comparable jet. Of course if you take aircraft produced in small numbers you can come up with outliers. But for aircraft with flights measured in the millions, the MD11 is significantly worse than any recent jet.

The premise is not that anything worse than the 737 is dangerous. The thread is about the MD11 and facts show that even without the last two write-offs the MD11 has a very poor record. Your argument that the accident reports exonerate the aircraft has not yet convinced me.

You are obviously a fan of crash comics and safety reports in general so will no doubt be familiar with the concept of 'the holes lining up on the swiss cheese' causing accidents. In this case we have :

1. An aircraft that a lot of pilots see as demanding and with a poor overall safety record
2. An operator with what appears to be a mixed reputation and one week's experience flying the MD11
3. Pilots who may not have been in recent practice flying the MD11 due to point two
4. Oversight of the operation in a country that also has a very mixed reputation.

The report will I am sure make interesting reading. In the mean time I think some interesting points have come out and will hopefully be clarified.

How mixed a reputation has China got these days. Please can you explain and illustrate with examples...?

Operator Experience ?
 

@Lederhosen,


from your mail:

2. An operator with what appears to be a mixed reputation and one week's experience flying the MD11

The operator has no experience flying the plane. It's the crew upfront who does. Let me repeat that the crew that tried to bring the MD11 into the air was rather very experienced. Yes the plane was new to the outfit, but the plane was not new to the crew.
And regarding reputation: Some rate it good, some rate it bad, as with pretty much every other outfit carrying cargo...


3. Pilots who may not have been in recent practice flying the MD11 due to point two

Has the crew that piloted the MD11 not had any recent flying experience ? I read all the contributions to this thread but did not find such information. If you could please point me towards that info.
I have read on multiple replies from experienced crew that the crew was very experienced.

Yes they were. I've flown with three of the four.

Flightmech.


Of course it makes a difference that the MD11 is mostly operated as a freighter.


In this role is does not draw as much attention when it crashes simply because only the unfortunate crew members pay the price


As I mentioned already, if B777's or any widely used passenger Aircraft for that matter were crashing at the rate of the MD11 with large numbers of casualties the offending aircraft would already be grounded and a fix mandated.


Whether the MD11 can be 'fixed' is questionable though..

I still disagree, whether its a freighter or pax aircraft, the authorites would take the same interest either way. A smoking hole is a smoking hole.

Load Toad ,the oversight should be provided by the country of registration, in this case Zimbabwe, one of the most troubled countries in the world. The country has a mixed reputation in the aviation world going back decades to the era of sanctions. Although not registered there MK airlines of Halifax 747 fame etc. also had very strong associations with that country.

Heading South, the crew fly the plane according to the operations manual provided by the airline. The company procedures with respect to loading, checking weight and balance could have played a significant role. The unfortunate pilots seem to have been known to Huck and we might reasonably infer were from Fedex the most experienced operator of the type in the world. How likely is it that they left a good job there to start the next day at Avient? I am sure this will all come out some time in the future. I may be wrong, but it is at least a reasonable question, thus the use of the word 'may' in point 3.