zlacker

>>jnsaff+(OP)
Video of the crash, left (?) engine was already engulfed in flames while taking off

https://x.com/BNONews/status/1985845907191889930

https://xcancel.com/BNONews/status/1985845907191889930

Edit: just the mp4 https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1985845862409334784/pu/...

There is an incredible amount of ground damage! Just wow, this is very bad https://files.catbox.moe/3303ob.jpg

>>haunte+t
The damage on the ground is scary to look at. I think the only silver lining here is that it was "just" a sparser industrial area and there weren't any homes. I'm really curious about what the investigation will reveal in a few months. This doesn't look like a "regular" engine fire from a bird strike or so, you would normally expect the flames to come out the back and not over the wing. And at least in theory the MD-11 should be flyable with just two engines, although flames on a wing is probably "really really bad" just by itself already. Too early to speculate about what happened though.

>>justsi+o2
> And at least in theory the MD-11 should be flyable with just two engines

Flying with two engines and taking off without an engine in a loaded aircraft are two very different things. A lot more thrust is needed during takeoff than after.

>>Jtsumm+W4
Taking off with one engine inoperative (on a multi-engine aircraft, obviously - you aren't going to get anywhere with your only engine gone) is completely normal/within design parameters, albeit undesirable.

In fact, it being normal almost certainly contributed to the scale of this accident, since a single engine failure during the takeoff roll isn't considered enough of an emergency to reject the takeoff at high speed (past a certain speed, you only abort if the aircraft is literally unflyable - for everything else, you take the aircraft & emergency into the air and figure it out there). The crew wouldn't have had any way to know that one of their engines had not simply failed, but was straight-up gone with their wing on fire to boot.

>>filled+3m
> The crew wouldn't have had any way to know that one of their engines had not simply failed, but was straight-up gone with their wing on fire to boot.

I don't know about the MD-11 itself, but other aircraft from that time period have sensors to detect and report overheat and fire in various parts of the aircraft, including engines and wings.

>>Jtsumm+xm
This puts an impractical amount of faith in the sensor wiring when the whole pylon and cowling are shredded.

>>positr+mq
It is a very practical amount of fait.

There are two fire detection loops for each engine.[1] Even if both fails (because they get shredded as you say it) the system will report an engine fire if the two loops fail within 5s of each other. (Or FIRE DET (1,2,3,or APU) FAIL, if they got shredded with more than 5s in between without any fire indications in between.)

The detection logic is implemented directly below the cockpit. So that unlikely to have shredded at the same time. But even if the detection logic would have died that would also result in a fire alarm. (as we learned from the March 31, 2002 Charlotte incident.)[2]

In other words it is a very reliable system.

1: page 393 https://randomflightdatabase.fr/Documents/Manuel%20Aviation/...

2: https://www.fss.aero/accident-reports/dvdfiles/US/2002-03-31...