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[return to "UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport"]
1. haunte+t[view] [source] 2025-11-04 23:14:16
>>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

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2. justsi+o2[view] [source] 2025-11-04 23:29:01
>>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.
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3. Jtsumm+W4[view] [source] 2025-11-04 23:47:49
>>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.

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4. filled+3m[view] [source] 2025-11-05 02:31:24
>>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.

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5. Jtsumm+xm[view] [source] 2025-11-05 02:37:57
>>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.

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6. filled+Kz[view] [source] 2025-11-05 04:41:17
>>Jtsumm+xm
Well, there's a very big difference between "Engine fire: some of the combustion chamber's heat and flame has breached containment" and, say, "Engine fire: the engine has exploded, catastrophically damaging your wing which is now visibly on fire". However, both things are reported in the cockpit as ENG FIRE.

There's also a very big difference between "Engine failure: something has damaged or jammed enough components that the turbines are no longer spinning fast enough to produce thrust or drive the generators" and "Engine failure: the engine is no longer attached to the aircraft, which is why it is no longer producing thrust". However, both things are reported in the cockpit as ENG FAIL.

(Un)fortunately, cockpit warnings prioritise the what (so to speak) and not the how or why. On one hand, this makes decision-making a lot simpler for the crew, but on the other...well, in rare cases the lack of insight can exacerbate a disaster. Depending on when exactly the engine gave out, this poor crew might have been doomed either way, but they might have been able to minimise collateral damage if they knew just how badly crippled the aircraft was. And there was a very similar accident to this one (actually involving the predecessor of the MD-11, the DC-10), American Airlines 191 - one of the engines detached from the aircraft, damaging the leading edge of its wing in the process, causing that wing to stall when the crew slowed down below the stall speed of the damaged wing in a bid to climb. If they could have somehow known about the damage, the accident might have been avoided entirely as the crew might have known to keep their speed up.

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7. eterni+O11[view] [source] 2025-11-05 09:03:38
>>filled+Kz
Could they add cameras to solve this issue?
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8. roryir+R31[view] [source] 2025-11-05 09:24:39
>>eterni+O11
During engine failure / fire situations, I would expect that pilots are likely to be too busy to have any time left over for peering at a video feed, trying to assess the state of the wing.

In emergencies, information overload tends to make things worse, not better.

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9. Exotic+j81[view] [source] 2025-11-05 10:10:17
>>roryir+R31
Having cameras pointed at the engines/wings like rearview mirrors would be helpful. It does not add that much workload if you take a quick glance in the “mirror” and figure out what the problem exactly is.

And now we have technology that allows for cameras everywhere to give a better situational awareness across all critical aircraft surfaces and systems.

It is going to take a little bit of adjusting to, but it will help improve safety in a tremendous way.

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10. krisof+Rh1[view] [source] 2025-11-05 11:59:44
>>Exotic+j81
> Having cameras pointed at the engines/wings like rearview mirrors would be helpful.

Helpful in what way? What are the pilots going to do with the information?

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11. Exotic+ri1[view] [source] 2025-11-05 12:03:46
>>krisof+Rh1
They won't have to rely on cabin crew description of what they see over the wings or have to send one of the pilots to take a look (see UA1175).
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12. krisof+Qq1[view] [source] 2025-11-05 13:12:14
>>Exotic+ri1
Okay. So you mean in general it would help in some cases. Not that in this case it would have helped.

> see UA1175

I'm familiar with the case you are mentioning. I'm also aware that they sent a jump seater to look at the engine. But did seeing the engine provide them with any actionable information? Did they fly the airplane differently than if they would have just seen the indications available in the cockpit?

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13. Exotic+MV1[view] [source] 2025-11-05 16:01:19
>>krisof+Qq1
Yes, the cameras would not have helped here, but it dorsn’t mean they are useless in general.

Stupid car analogy: airbags help in most cases, but not all. Are they useless?

Regarding UA1175, they had someone extra, but not all flights happen to have someone extra in the cockpit.

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14. krisof+m72[view] [source] 2025-11-05 16:57:33
>>Exotic+MV1
> airbags help in most cases, but not all.

Excellent. So in what cases does seeing the engine visually do help? So far we discussed UPS2976 and UA1175 where the presence or absence of the camera didn't change the outcome.

> Regarding UA1175, they had someone extra, but not all flights happen to have someone extra in the cockpit.

You are dancing around my question. What does the pilot do differently based on what they see? If you can't articulate a clear "pilot sees X they do Y, pilot sees Z they do Q" flow then what is the video good for?

in a sibling thread you say "There are countless situations where it can be helpful." But you haven't named even one of those countless situations yet.

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