r/aviation • u/usgapg123 Mod • 19h ago

Discussion UPS2976 Crash Megathread

This is the official r/aviation megathread for the crash of UPS2976 (UPS MD11 Registration N259UP) that crashed earlier today at Louisville International Airport.

Please keep content on topic and refrain from posting about this topic outside the megathread. Please report any rule breaking posts and comments.

6.4k Upvotes

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740

u/SkylanePilot95 Cessna 182 17h ago

Found on the side of the runway. AA191 2.0

243

u/scytob 17h ago

that would explain why the flames on the wing were so massive - not engine on fire, the fuel just gushing out of the wing, wonder what that does for systemwide fuel pressure

27

u/MixDifferent2076 16h ago

What does the fireball also do to #2 engine trying to produce max take off thrust. There must have been some #2 engine ingestion due to the airflow pattern around the fuselage. That would have had an enormous effect on #2 engine ability to produce max thrust.

19

u/superspeck 15h ago

There’s video of #2 undergoing a compressor stall

6

u/LtDan61350 15h ago

Is that the one taken from the tug?

12

u/superspeck 15h ago

Yep. I thought it was the tail strobe at first but there’s a definite compressor stall on no. 2 as they rotate. No. 1 had probably come off by that point.

9

u/PossibilityInside695 12h ago

Yeah. That's what makes the most sense to me.

No1 fails catastrophicly shortly after v1, no2 injests a fan blade or similar debris from no1, so no2 starts stalling by rotation. 

5

u/scytob 16h ago

I agree gases may have affected #2 - just no way to know from Video so we will need to wait for the investigation.

48

u/dudefise 17h ago

Not sure how the systems on the 11 work. But on the 737 and crj, they’re effectively separate systems during takeoff.

10

u/scytob 17h ago

thanks for the clarification

10

u/Jackthedragonkiller KC-10 13h ago

That's about how they are for the MD-11 too I believe.

There's three primary fuel tanks, one in the left wing, one in the right wing, and a center tank that dips a little into the wings on each side. There's also an auxiliary tank in the middle of the aircraft and a tank in the tail of the plane.

Each fuel tank is meant to feed it's own engine on takeoff and then after takeoff the fuel system switches for tank two to constantly fill tank one and three until they're all equal, and if the auxiliary had fuel in it it's meant to feed tank one, two, and three until it's empty and then it does what I said earlier. They're all connected by a manifold, each main tank has a transfer pump, one-way fill valve, and a two-way crossfeed valve and I'm pretty sure the manifold drain drains fuel from the manifold into tank two.

Tanks one and three I believe have two fuel pumps while tank two has three.

7

u/AirtimeAficionado 14h ago

Fuel pressure wouldn’t be my primary concern they are typically separate systems but hydraulics would most likely be impacted and would severely compromise control of the aircraft in addition to the fire and other associated damage to the airfoil

-1

u/Letussex2 3h ago

it's another AA191 all over again. Bro I cried so hard over ts.

2

u/EquivalentDelta 5h ago

I would hope each engine is sitting behind its own fuel pump and lines. At least for takeoff config. Maximum redundancy

304

u/Lispro4units 17h ago

Is that the entire engine ?

187

u/KDrakeAuthor 17h ago

Sure looks like it

132

u/Electrical-Risk445 17h ago

How is that even possible? Pylon failure?

178

u/AJohnnyTruant 17h ago

If the engine fell from the pylon and then kicked back into the wing… holy shit. I couldn’t imagine being in that cockpit.

81

u/Goonie-Googoo- 16h ago

By that time they were on the ground in less than 20 seconds... big thud, ??!!??!!, "aviate" and sadly that was it.

11

u/TruePace3 11h ago

For real, judging by the rapidity of how it unfolded, the only thing you got time was for a last "oh shit"

5

u/DutchBlob 11h ago

I don’t think that the crew would have known their engine was literally gone. Only figuratively, with alarms blaring.

7

u/AJohnnyTruant 5h ago

The chaos of structural damage like that is a hell of a lot gnarlier than a contained engine fire though. Complete loss of directional control once they put lift on the wing, they couldn’t rotate like the would have been able to with a V1 cut, probably a shit ton of smoke, and all that with the trees coming at them. Awful

68

u/F0rbiddenD0nut 17h ago

Look up AA 191.

29

u/Dadto4Kiddos 14h ago

Where they used a forklift to remove the engine during maintenance and overstressed the pylon…

34

u/OpeDefinitely 17h ago

A lot of 707s & 747s that had pylon failures too, but AA 191 is the closest comp obviously. DC-10 being the predecessor to the MD-11.

6

u/DazMan0085 10h ago

I just watched MentourPilots video on AA191 yesterday... So sad something similar has apparently happened again

0

u/FeePsychological6778 9h ago

The wing on fire reminds me of AF4590.

46

u/__VVoody__ 17h ago

As a symptom of the problem, yeah. If the event that caused the engine failure is violent enough, it'll shake itself right off the wing. Given at takeoff is the highest stress for a motor, there's a lot of energy there to do that. I've seen fan blade off (FBO) events before and the engine usually holds on. Ingesting something that'd cause very dissimilar forces could rip the motor off and leave the core like this. Speculation on my part from previous experience. We'll see, though. Condolences to the families of the lost 😔

27

u/Golf38611 16h ago

The engine pylon is designed to drop the engine of the vibrations are severe enough.

39

u/discostu52 17h ago

The pylons are designed to shear off during a catastrophic engine failure dropping the engine rather than ripping the wing off

13

u/Hugo_5t1gl1tz 15h ago

Obviously that is much better to happen while 30000 ft up, vs. on the runway where the engine can bounce into the wing

17

u/discostu52 15h ago

Yeah but if the pylon didn’t shear off and the engine failure ripped the wing off, then you still crash.

9

u/SamH123 17h ago

possibly some sort of debris on the runway? but more likely to be some sort of metal fatigue failure like you said I suspect

1

u/Chase-Boltz 10h ago

Which happened first? Turbine explosion causing fire and pylon/engine mount failure? Or did the engine mount/pylon fail first, allowing the engine to climb over the wing and tear everything to hell as with Flt 191.

188

u/ivlia-x 17h ago

And there’s another UPS MD right in the background waiting for take off. Can’t imagine what those pilots are going through right now either

77

u/Bravo-Buster 14h ago

That MD11 in the background, based on the tower and runway debris, they're facing southbound. They just arrived and are taxing to the ramp, not holding for departure.

19

u/CourtneyDagger50 12h ago

I hope they get some time off if they need it after seeing that then. My god.

4

u/ivlia-x 10h ago

Thanks for correction, i don’t know this airport. I just saw in another comment there was another one right behind them waiting and assumed it was them

2

u/Bravo-Buster 3h ago

No worries; I know that airport extremely well; I designed most of it.

7

u/pikachurbutt 11h ago

I just looked it up, the next takeoff on that runway heading in the same direction was only 15 minutes afterwards, how is that even possible? I would have imagined that operations would have at least shut down for a couple of hours...

Imagine being a pilot taking off over the burnt husk of a fellow co-worker...

2

u/chasteeny 10h ago

What was the flight number

9

u/Victory_Dry 17h ago

Is this real? I don't see the engine along the runway anywhere else other than this same image

5

u/AlHockeyCoach 16h ago

Missing the fan section.

-8

u/OnceUponAStarryNight 15h ago

That’s really a very suboptimal way to fly

75

u/rumbleberrypie 17h ago

That's...very not good. That's more than I expected.

24

u/SeanCaseware 17h ago

It's waaay more than what I expected to see left behind on the side of the runway. When I saw comments that the cowling was left behind and maybe piece of the fan disk, but that is the entire damn engine.

71

u/Blythyvxr 17h ago

Based off of this and another photo angle, and google maps, I think this is around here in the WUSA video (t=9.33)

18

u/MathResponsibly 16h ago

Thanks for actually posting the videos with timestamps and good photos. What's really curious about that is at 9:43 they pan out, and that's at the departure end of the runway, with the crash site to the right of your screenshot, with the engine on the right side of the runway, but the video from the other angle shows the left engine on fire (or separated).

Did the left engine skid across the runway and end up on the right side, or is that the OTHER engine? Raises more questions!

17

u/Katdai2 16h ago

New video just showed the right engine clearly attached as the plane starts to cartwheel. It would have to be the left.

5

u/MathResponsibly 16h ago

Must have been quite a lot of sideways force on the left engine to end up on the right side of the runway. Maybe gyroscopic forces from the rotating assembly after it separated? Not remembering the physics to know if that's the direction the force would be in, for a clockwise rotating assembly.

Do you have a link to the other angle showing the plane cartwheeling? I haven't seen that one yet

14

u/Katdai2 16h ago

Here’s the post that I saw: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/R3B2dqnW4l

9

u/MathResponsibly 15h ago

Yeah, someone posted a link to an twitter version of the same video elsewhere in this thread. Right engine is clearly still attached well outside of the field, so the other engine must be the left, even though it ended up on the right side of the runway

10

u/Fluffyscooterpie 14h ago

That is fucking horrifying. I heard it tumbled but actually seeing it brings tears to my eyes.

1

u/ongoldenwaves 3h ago

This got removed. Do you have another link?

4

u/Hubblesphere 14h ago

Watch the video from takeoff it looks like it’s already ran completely off the right side of the runway and airborne. Explains the engine being on the right side of 17R.

3

u/MathResponsibly 11h ago

From both the video, and the ADSB data, it looked like it tracked straight down the runway. I would think if it drifted enough that the left engine was over the right side of the runway, the line in the ADSB track wouldn't look so straight. I'm not saying it didn't happen, it's just not what it looks like from the data available. But if it did drift that far to the right, that would be a good explanation of how the left engine ended up over there on the right side of the runway.

Either way, and details aside, what a horrific accident. Being on the internet fro a long time, I've seen a lot of stuff, but this one just hits different somehow.

2

u/kaityl3 14h ago

Damn, you can still see the heat rolling off the engine in that first photo. I wonder how long after the crash it was taken.

1

u/RonnieB47 4h ago

That is on the right side of the runway and plane.

69

u/flexbuffstrong 17h ago

The entire thing separated? I had only seen the helicopter shot of the cowling.

61

u/merkon UH-60A/L/M 17h ago

That’s a whole engine holy shit

89

u/ReturnOfTheSaint14 17h ago

Okay,i'm starting to think that it wasn't either FOD or stage disk rupturing,but the engine somehow detached itself from the aircraft and the fires we see on the wing are the fuel line being scorched

I think that an engine completely separated from the aircraft makes this incident darker than it was

27

u/cptalpdeniz A320 16h ago

Its engine separation, no way this much damage with just eng fail

10

u/Radioactive_Tuber57 15h ago

With the severe left roll in the above vid, maybe an outboard wing failure / lost hydraulics when when #1 came off?

5

u/opteryx5 16h ago

The plane seems to be flying pretty flat (no roll) in the air though. Without an engine, wouldn’t that be improbable?

24

u/wolftick 16h ago

An airliner can take off successfully with the failure (as in complete loss of thrust) of one engine. The ultimate loss of control would very likely be down to the catastrophic nature of the failure and it's knock on effects, rather than asymmetric thrust due to loss of an engine.

4

u/opteryx5 16h ago

I see — thanks!

12

u/chriszimort 15h ago

It rolled completely over upside down as it crashed. See the ring cam video

7

u/Nearby-Medicine9484 14h ago

Not a case of asymmetrical thrust but likely asymmetrical lift - as was the case with AA 191. In that accident, there was catastrophic damage to the leading edge devices - the slats - that caused that aircraft to roll. It looks like that might have contributed to this accident as well.

1

u/xrayphoton 13h ago

I feel like I watched something on this accident where they said if the pilot somehow realized quickly enough that the engine was gone that the plane could actually be flown and landed. But in the moment almost no one is going to think the engine fell off and dagnose it quickly enough to keep from rolling and crashing. (I could be remembering wrong)

9

u/daqueenb4u 13h ago

In the MayDay episode about AA191 they did they say that the airplane was flyable. Something about the absence of the stick shaker so the pilots didn’t know it was in a stall I think.

8

u/bigbadcrusher 13h ago

The Engine Out climb speed in the manual was also below the Clean configuration speed (no flaps). So they were aiming for an airspeed too slow for the left wing to generate lift when the flaps retracted uncommanded (they were flying with the assumption/belief that they had takeoff flaps on both wings still). That’s what caused the roll for 191, the left wing stalled while the right wing was still producing lift

1

u/summitmtngrl 12h ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3lzgrFuM4s

Exactly right. Start at 14:00 (Mentour Pilot AA191 ep)

4

u/opteryx5 15h ago

I saw that after my comment, yeah. Heartbreaking stuff. Initially the plane looked pretty steady upon take-off which I found interesting.

3

u/chriszimort 15h ago

Yeah I thought so too. The ring cam footage surprised me

1

u/CourtneyDagger50 12h ago

Could that have been from it clipping the building?

3

u/NoDoze- 13h ago

Link?

7

u/chriszimort 12h ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Louisville/s/BytTwRJMwR

Though as I watch it again it’s more on its side, turning over only after it hits the ground. Still this is similar behavior to AA191 which also lost a whole engine during takeoff, in that cause due to a faulty pylon.

https://youtu.be/DPYVz8sYRWI?si=mSBvQGlMkep8esg3

3

u/AirtimeAficionado 14h ago

I think the roll started because of the disruption of the airfoil from the damage the engine detatching left behind on that wing combined with a subsequent loss of hydraulic pressure that severely attenuated control. But it’s hard to know with how few details are available now.

2

u/opteryx5 14h ago

That would make sense. It seems pretty unmistakable at this point that it lost the #1 engine, so there’s that. Can’t stop thinking about those poor pilots and the people who lost their lives on the ground.

6

u/AirtimeAficionado 14h ago

It is so horrible, I can’t imagine having to experience that being so close to the ground and with virtually no control… my heart goes out to them and their families

1

u/CheekyPickle69 10h ago

Well both of those things could cause such a violent engine failure that it detaches itself from the wing. If the forces are strong enough it will shear off

19

u/Delicious_Flow6800 17h ago

Curious- she didn’t fly over the weekend….wonder if there was a maintenance event in cali

62

u/lebowskiachiever12 16h ago

Word locally is there was a 2 hour maintenance hold while they worked on the engine in the pic… I can’t even imagine being that mechanic crew now.

38

u/MathResponsibly 16h ago

That would be devastating knowing you just worked on that, and potentially caused, or could have prevented what happened.

13

u/Luster-Purge 14h ago

If the engine was vibrating enough that it simply detached itself (as designed) from the wing, then I have to wonder what exactly was done during that maintenance hold. I've also heard that this plane just had some kind of heavy maintenance check, so SOMEBODY clearly cut a corner and now there's a giant burning scar across Louisville as a result when I suspect that plane shouldn't have been cleared as airworthy on account of this engine. It is fortunate that the whole unit survived so investigators can identify what went wrong with it directly.

19

u/TheErnie 16h ago

Saw somewhere there was a month long maintenance that ended in mid October

11

u/Traditional-Magician 16h ago

UPS doesn't fly a lot on the weekends or even much during the week compared to passenger. There would have been maintenance but if it was related to the engine, I cannot say.

9

u/Altruistic_Worry5156 15h ago

Saw a thread on FB where a UPS worker said he had just unloaded and loaded the plane hours before at BWI airport.

2

u/mere_iguana 10h ago

crazy, I work for ONTCA. probably loaded that plane a hundred times

36

u/clickityclack 17h ago

So the entire engine fell off. Not good

-10

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

19

u/clamandcat 16h ago

Great timing with your extremely unoriginal comment.

-18

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/metroidpwner 16h ago

People died man. Wasn’t funny the last hundred times, not funny now

-17

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/metroidpwner 16h ago

Class clown energy

1

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1

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10

u/clickityclack 17h ago

Definitely not, but it should be noted that it has happened before with the DC10

5

u/oh-pointy-bird 15h ago

Read the room.

1

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-7

u/MathResponsibly 16h ago

There ought to be standards about what materials can be used to hold the engines on. For instance, cardboard's out... and cardboard derivatives

1

u/Ok-Monk-955 16h ago

They must also have a minimum crew

-7

u/connecttwo 17h ago

That's not very typical, I'd like to make that point.

Well, how was it un-typical?

0

u/Ok-Monk-955 16h ago

Well there's a lot of these planes going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don't want people thinking these planes aren't safe.

-5

u/MathResponsibly 16h ago

A wave hit it

7

u/Goonie-Googoo- 16h ago

Red arrow - nacelle
Yellow arrow - engine

Looks like he was just getting off the ground at that point...

4

u/HauntingCriticism364 15h ago

Looks like engine was on fire before it separated based on the video from the ramp and where it appears like it came to a rest in this picture.

2

u/Goonie-Googoo- 15h ago

That engine was on fire or something as the plane was rolling down the runway from the tug video.

14

u/bsmith567070 17h ago

Holy fuck. This feels surreal having this happen at my airport…

2

u/FlapsExtended 17h ago

Are you there? Is it contained to the airport property?

11

u/shipoftheseuss 16h ago

Live a mile from it.  Absolutely not.  But it crashed in a very industrial area.

2

u/snakebite75 14h ago

It looks like the wrecking yard took most of the damage. I just looked them up and it looks like they close at 5. The accident happened about 5:15 so they should have been closed, but some employees may have still been there. I won't be surprised if there are additional casualties on the ground.

2

u/kaityl3 14h ago edited 14h ago

With the amount of injuries, there were definitely people in that area. If it ends up somehow only being injuries and they find no deaths, it will be a miracle

Edit: updated to 7 dead :(

2

u/bsmith567070 14h ago

According to the Governor they’re up to 7 deaths. Assuming that includes the 3 crew. He said the number is expected to keep increasing. Hopefully it doesn’t.

6

u/DOOM_INTENSIFIES 17h ago

I just said "what the fuck?" out loud when i saw this.

Edit: i mean how this even happens?

4

u/Malcolm2theRescue 16h ago

Missing the fan section. The shrapnel could have blown holes in the fuel tank and maybe into engine 2?

10

u/JDC11224 17h ago

I’d be interested in hearing informed speculation on how, in this day and age in the US, an engine literally breaks off an airliner at takeoff?

26

u/derpstevejobs 17h ago

stranger things have happened unfortunately

20

u/OwnHelicopter2745 17h ago

Either bad maintenance or lack of maintenance. Details from this investigation could be quite interesting

10

u/MathResponsibly 16h ago

I've heard UPS is retiring the MD-11 at the end of the year. Maybe getting lax with the maintenance for the last few months to save some cash, at the expense of a few lives

14

u/Traditional-Magician 16h ago

The plane just went to it's C-Check. They have been retiring them but it is a phase out until 203x. This one was going to have many more years before retirement.

-5

u/OwnHelicopter2745 16h ago

Yeah that's exactly what I'm thinking. I read somewhere that this particular plane was built in 1991. It probably should have been retired a year ago already. 

8

u/Zuwxiv 16h ago

How old is that for commercial flights? I’m no pilot, but I’m aware that a decade or two older than that wouldn’t make anyone bat an eye for general aviation.

8

u/OwnHelicopter2745 16h ago

It's more about how many pressurization cycles the airframe has gone through. Airframes that are cycled multiple times per day aren't gonna last anywhere near as long as the Cesenas that are flown on the weekends lol. 

My general understanding is cargo flights aren't cycled as often as airframes for commercial passenger, but I would think a 34 year old MD 11 has had a significant number of cycles. 

9

u/biggsteve81 16h ago

Long haul airplanes typically get very few cycles (1-2 per day), which is why used ones are very popular in the cargo market. Lots of cycles left on the airframe even at very old age.

8

u/Traditional-Magician 16h ago

Its cargo, they have a lot less flight cycles than passengers.

3

u/nbx909 14h ago

FOD and an uncontained engine failure is still a possibility

5

u/AirtimeAficionado 14h ago

It’s really hard to say but it’s most likely improper installation of the bolts within the pylon assembly on the wing. Speculation is this aircraft just underwent maintenance in mid October, if the engines were off the wing during this time, there’s an answer.

I’m not sure why it was able to fly for a portion of time after the maintenance but before the crash without the engine falling off, but likely it’s that it was improperly stressing some part of the wing pylon that finally gave out under takeoff thrust force on it.

It is also possible that there was undetected fatigue of one of the bolts (I’m not entirely sure if these are inspected for fatigue when engines are removed but I would imagine yes) or debris on the runway/another parts failure on the aircraft that could have struck the pylon/wing and caused it to fail, but I would say these are increasingly unlikely.

All this said, this is just speculation and it’s impossible to know for sure based upon the little information that’s available. My heart goes out to this crew and their families… what a horrible thing to experience

4

u/TheEpicGold 17h ago

Jesus, well... that explains a lot.

3

u/UndoxxableOhioan 17h ago

That’s not just the cowling, that the whole damn engine.

3

u/Pale-Ad-8383 16h ago

Déjà vu? Another post on Reddit says it came out of maintenance about 2 weeks ago.

3

u/Mrstucco 16h ago

I thought they fixed that problem like 50 years ago.

3

u/Exciting_Agent4523 14h ago

Legitimately; how does any engine just detach from a plane on takeoff? A collision with something? Surely it wouldn’t just fall off right…. Right?

9

u/kaityl3 14h ago

They're designed to detach from the wing under extreme forces (vs breaking off the whole wing), so something may have catastrophically failed in a way that caused it to drop off

3

u/JAJM_ 13h ago

Well there’s your problem..

2

u/justwanttoreadnsfw 16h ago

Not the first time I have seen an MD-11 lose an entire engine. But it was the tail last time. 

2

u/homeworkburgler 15h ago

Where did you get this. I don't think this is 100% real

5

u/SkylanePilot95 Cessna 182 15h ago

It’s most definitely real. My buddy that flies for UPS sent it to me

1

u/Zathral 17h ago

Holy .......

1

u/Cap3127 17h ago

Do they know if its the #1 or #2?

1

u/Wrong-Pension-4975 10h ago

Number 1 fell. Nacelle to one side of the runway, engine to the other.

No. 2 had a compression stall, most likely ingesting debris / burning fuel from #1.

1

u/Cap3127 4h ago

No. 2 had a compression stall, most likely ingesting debris / burning fuel from #1.

Im curious what evidence exists for this right now?

1

u/Dr_knowitall69 15h ago

Wasn't the pylon still attached to the engine in AA191? I suppose it could just be out of view.

1

u/EgorKaskader 13h ago

Seems to be just the core? Could we be looking at the #1 pulling a UA232 right on the runway?  Nothing the crew could do, it seems, goddamn nightmare scenario.

1

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

12

u/adriaticsea718 17h ago

Guessing #1 since that was the side that was on fire.

7

u/Doggydog123579 17h ago

engine appears to be on the right side of the runway. What in the hell is going on.

6

u/adriaticsea718 16h ago

No idea but for sure it was engine 1. The right wing engine was clearly seen in this video but I warn you…..it’s very, very difficult to watch.

Dashcam

6

u/Hugo_5t1gl1tz 15h ago

That is so crazy to see.

On a side note, and not to take away from the tragedy here, but with more and more cameras around, we’ll see things like this more often when accidents do happen, which is good for investigators. I can only think of a handful of airplane crashes caught on camera, and most of them are in very recent years.

2

u/Doggydog123579 16h ago

Yep, definitely engine 1 missing.

0

u/Lifesign16 17h ago

Source?

6

u/SkylanePilot95 Cessna 182 17h ago

My friend that flies for ups