{"id":124450,"date":"2025-11-08T10:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T10:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/124450\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T10:09:08","slug":"two-us-cargo-carriers-ground-all-md-11-aircraft-after-deadly-louisville-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/124450\/","title":{"rendered":"Two US cargo carriers ground all MD-11 aircraft after deadly Louisville crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rishabh Jaiswal and Dheeraj Kumar, for Reuters<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\nA McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aeroplane, the same model as the planes grounded by UPS and FedEx (file photo).
\nPhoto: Byorn Strey – CC BY-SA 2.0\n<\/p>\n

A UPS MD-11 cargo plane crashed on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people
\nFedEx and UPS are implementing contingency plans to try to avoid disruptions<\/p>\n

UPS and FedEx say they have grounded their combined fleet of more than 50 McDonnell Douglas MD-11 cargo planes, following the crash in Louisville, Kentucky this week<\/a> that killed at least 14 people.<\/p>\n

A UPS MD-11 crashed late on Tuesday, erupting into a fireball moments after takeoff from Louisville’s international airport. The death toll from the crash, the cause of which is still under investigation, has risen to 14, according to a post on X by Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg on Friday US time (Saturday, NZT).<\/p>\n

UPS and FedEx, the world’s largest cargo carriers, said in separate statements that they grounded the aircraft “out of an abundance of caution.”<\/p>\n

FedEx said it operates 28 MD-11s and, according to a UPS factsheet, UPS had 27 in its fleet prior to the crash.<\/p>\n

“We made this decision proactively at the recommendation of the aircraft manufacturer,” UPS said in its statement.<\/p>\n

Boeing, which acquired the MD-11 program through its 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Production of the MD-11 planes ended in 2000, and passenger service officially ended in 2014.<\/p>\n

FedEx, which has a total fleet of 700 aircraft, said it was “immediately implementing contingency plans” to avoid disruptions. UPS said that its MD-11s account for only 9 percent of its fleet.<\/p>\n

Still, any potential disruptions could have far-reaching consequences as FedEx and UPS are the workhorses for transferring goods around the world for major retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart and Target, as well as for manufacturers and businesses.<\/p>\n

UPS is the number one air cargo service provider for the US Postal Service, transporting Priority and other speedy mail products.<\/p>\n

US National Transportation Safety Board leads probe<\/p>\n

The US NTSB is leading the probe into the crash of the 34-year-old MD-11 freighter at the Louisville airport. The plane reached about 30.5 meters (100 feet) above ground level before plunging in flames off the runway and destroying two nearby businesses.<\/p>\n

One of the plane’s three engines detached from the left wing as it rolled down the Louisville airport runway<\/a>. On Friday, US safety investigators said that as a warning bell sounded in the cockpit, three UPS pilots had tried to wrestle control of the plane just before it crashed.<\/p>\n

While UPS flight 2976 began uneventfully, a repeating bell was heard on the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder just 37 seconds after the crew called for takeoff thrust, NTSB member Todd Inman told reporters.<\/p>\n

NTSB anticipates issuing a preliminary investigation report into the crash in about 30 days.<\/p>\n

The last UPS cargo plane to crash was in August 2013, when an Airbus aircraft went down on a landing approach to the international airport in Birmingham, Alabama, killing both crew members.<\/p>\n

– Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Rishabh Jaiswal and Dheeraj Kumar, for Reuters A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aeroplane, the same model as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[48,47,156,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-124450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-podcasts","16":"tag-public-radio","17":"tag-radio-new-zealand","18":"tag-rnz","19":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}