What to know about the MD-11 cargo plane after the UPS crash in Louisville
The UPS plane that crashed in Louisville was a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, a long-range cargo jet known for its power.
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: 7:43 PM EST November 4, 2025
Updated: 7:43 PM EST November 4, 2025
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The UPS plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport just after 5 p.m. Tuesday was a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, a wide-body cargo jet used for long-haul flights.
The MD-11 is a long-range, tri-jet aircraft developed by McDonnell Douglas in the late 1980s and later produced by Boeing after the companies merged in 1997.
Other incidents involving the aircraft have happened in the past, including hard landings and tail strikes linked to its flight-control characteristics.

Notable crashes:
FedEx Express Flight 14 in 1997, a cargo flight from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey, suffered a hard landing that caused the aircraft to overturn. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued recommendations afterward to improve MD-11 operations.

Swissair Flight 111 in 1998, a passenger flight from New York’s JFK Airport to Geneva, involved a seven-year-old MD-11; about an hour after takeoff, the crew detected an odor in the cockpit, and all 229 passengers and crew were killed.

In 2009, FedEx Flight 80 crashed on landing at Tokyo Narita Airport, killing two. The flight had been scheduled to reach Narita in just under four hours.