As previously reported, a UPS plane with three crew members onboard crashed on takeoff from the Louisville, Kentucky, airport on Tuesday evening.
Per CNN: “A UPS MD-11 plane crashed near the Louisville, Kentucky, airport, according to preliminary information, a source says.”
“The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane crashed at about 5:15 p.m. It was taking off for Honolulu,” the AP reported.
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I can’t imagine what it is like to watch death coming at you, but I will bet that 99.9% of pilots are professionals to the very end. God bless them and rest in peace.
American Airlines 191, Chicago, 1979. Left engine fell off at takeoff. Pylon bolts and mount damaged by improper maintenance procedure.
Sounds awfully familiar.
I have always wondered why some planes considered too difficult and expensive to maintain are relegated to freighter roles. Almost like we can risk 100s of passengers, but 3 pilots is acceptable loss.
can’t
A person would be surprised how few bolts there are holding the jet engines on even the large planes.
So did anyone see Trump loosening the engine bolts? Somebody was quick to blame him for the crash
DEI mechanics, no doubt!
Most all those thrusters/engines are pinned on using ph13-8 high temp stainless steel. I dunno. I build a lot of this stuff. I’m thinking I’d look at a wing structural failure. But yea, DEI.
Brad, I agree. The bolts holding the engine in place are only designed to hold the weight of the engine. The wing frame structure is the point of resistance that is withstanding the force of the thrust that the engines are producing. I’ve sold some custom tools to Boeing specifically for engine mount applications and I was shocked at what seemed to be fewer bolts than I would have otherwise imagined.
Harry
Wednesday, 5 November 2025, 19:32 at 7:32 pm
“I can’t imagine what it is like to watch death coming at you…”
…the American Airlines Flight 191 that Uncle Al mentions had an innovation the company was trying out aboard that day, which was a video feed from the cockpit treating the passengers on the large screen in the cabin to a pilot’s eye view of the takeoff roll.
Unfortunately, the takeoff was not successful.
…it is unlikely thae either they nor the UPS crew today had the time to mentally process what they were seeing, but it is unsettling to the rest of us – particuarly the families – to think that they DID, so the practice was discontinued immediately.
https://youtu.be/5qKVaq0rrkU?si=Z7Wouiztj4ZxKOdz
No one wants to think they can see death coming, whether in a crazily canting cockpit or a hospital bed.
…but death is no less horrid if you DONT see it coming. The AA flight killed ground workers inside a building who would have had no warning at all, as did the UPS flight. One minute they are thinking about lunch, the next the world explodes from above. Nothing they did or didnt do that day could have changed it.
You dont have to be on a plane to die in a plane crash.
All you can do is be prayed up and ready to go. We are never as far from the other side as we like to think, and death has many guises…
https://youtu.be/N96s6Y6IIqI?si=ljvF5fnq30KZbjo9
…Ive seen more very recently deceased folks in my time than I like to think about, who died behind a wheel or in a bed, strapped to a toilet or hit on the head.
The one thing they all seemed to have in common is they did not appear to know it was their last day.
None of us do.
Be prepared for yours.
It may be falling from the sky towards you as we speak.
Senior FedEx mechanic Shrini Boomshakalakavishnu says he has no idea what happened; nor where his personal wrench set got to.