UPS, FedEx Ground Planes 'Out of an Abundance of Caution'

UPS and FedEx said they're grounding their fleets of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 planes "out of an abundance of caution" following a deadly crash at the UPS global aviation hub in Kentucky. The crash on Tuesday at UPS Worldport in Louisville killed 14 people, including the three pilots on the MD-11 that was headed for Honolulu. MD-11 aircrafts make up about 9% of of the UPS airline fleet and 4% of the FedEx fleet, the companies said, per the AP. "We made this decision proactively at the recommendation of the aircraft manufacturer," a UPS statement said late Friday. "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our employees and the communities we serve."

FedEx said in an email that it will be grounding the aircrafts while it conducts "a thorough safety review based on the recommendation of the manufacturer." Boeing, which merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, didn't immediately respond to an email from the AP asking for the reasoning behind the recommendation. Western Global Airlines is the only other US cargo airline that flies MD-11s, per aviation analytics firm Cirium. That airline has 16 MD-11s in its fleet, but 12 of them have already been put in storage.

Boeing announced in 1998 that it would be phasing out its MD-11 jetliner production, with final deliveries due in 2000. The UPS cargo plane, built in 1991, was nearly airborne Tuesday when a bell sounded in the cockpit, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said earlier Friday. For the next 25 seconds, the bell rang and the pilots tried to control the aircraft as it barely lifted off the runway, its left wing ablaze and missing an engine, and then plowed into the ground in a spectacular fireball.

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Inman said it would be months before a transcript of the cockpit recording is made public as part of the investigation process. Flight records suggest the UPS MD-11 that crashed underwent maintenance while it was on the ground in San Antonio for more than a month until mid-October. It isn't clear what work was done. UPS Worldport operations resumed Wednesday night with its Next Day Air, or night sort, operation, spokesperson Jim Mayer said.