The Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday, November 8, 2025, ordered all McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and MD-11F aircraft to remain on the ground until they pass safety inspections, issuing an emergency airworthiness directive after a UPS MD-11 crashed in Louisville earlier in the week. Regulators said the action was prompted by evidence that the jet’s left engine and pylon detached during the takeoff roll, an “unsafe condition” they warned could exist across the fleet.
Major U.S. cargo operators had already pulled the type from service ahead of the FAA order. UPS announced late Friday it was grounding MD-11s—about 9% of its airline fleet—“effective immediately,” and FedEx confirmed a similar stand-down while it conducts a safety review. Boeing, which inherited the MD-11 program in its 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, recommended that operators suspend flying while engineers complete additional analysis. Western Global Airlines is the other U.S. operator, with many of its frames in storage.
Investigators recovered the cockpit voice and flight data recorders and reported a repeating warning bell in the final seconds before impact. The Louisville crash killed 14 people, including the three pilots, and triggered a large fire near the UPS Worldport hub. While UPS resumed limited operations at Louisville, the company and local media cautioned customers that transit times could be affected as networks adapt.
What the grounding means for trucking: Express carriers will need to backfill overnight and second‑day air capacity by leaning harder on their integrated ground networks. Expect more “road feeder service” and additional long‑haul linehaul dispatches to protect delivery commitments, especially on lanes that normally rely on MD‑11 lift for transcontinental and international flows. For contract carriers and large asset‑based partners, that likely translates into weekend surges, pop‑up moves between air gateways, and tighter turn times out of facilities in Louisville, Memphis, Ontario (CA), Dallas–Fort Worth, and other parcel superhubs. Shippers who typically mix premium air with deferred ground should plan earlier pickups and build buffer time into appointment windows.
How long the disruption lasts will hinge on the inspections the FAA ultimately requires. The emergency directive prohibits flight until aircraft are inspected and any corrective actions are completed; trade press reporting indicates the focus includes the engine pylons, though the agency has not yet published a detailed method of compliance. In practical terms, operators will keep the subfleet parked until engineering guidance and inspection criteria are finalized.
Capacity risk is uneven. While the MD‑11 accounts for only about 4% of FedEx’s fleet and roughly 9% at UPS, those tri‑jets are concentrated on long‑haul, heavy‑lift missions where swapping to narrower, shorter‑range freighters is not one‑for‑one. Both carriers say contingency plans are in motion; expect them to reassign 767s, 777s and 747s where possible, and to re‑route some premium shipments to ground to protect service guarantees on the densest lanes. Short‑term, that can add truck miles and tighten linehaul capacity during an already compressed November–December peak.
For brokers and shippers, the near‑term playbook is straightforward: monitor carrier service alerts daily; secure linehaul early for Southeast–Midwest–Mid‑South corridors feeding Louisville and Memphis; and anticipate ad‑hoc tenders for night and weekend linehaul as air–ground imbalances ripple through parcel networks. If the inspection regime clears aircraft quickly, the drag on trucking could be brief; if findings point to deeper repairs, expect a longer stretch of truck‑centric contingency operations before full air capacity is restored.
Sources: FreightWaves, AP News, Reuters, The Washington Post, UPS
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