UPS Plane That Crashed Near Louisville Had Recent Repairs for Corrosion and Structural Crack

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) — The UPS cargo plane that crashed Tuesday near Louisville spent much of September and October undergoing maintenance in San Antonio, according to federal records.

Documents filed with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) indicate the aircraft had reported issues involving rust and a structural crack before returning to service.

Flight records show the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 arrived in San Antonio on September 3 and remained there until October 18, where a UPS maintenance contractor performed work on the plane. UPS currently operates 27 MD-11 aircraft in its fleet.

According to entries in the FAA Service Difficulty Reporting System, technicians discovered corrosion in two separate areas within the bilge section of the plane and identified a cracked stringer near the center wing’s upper fuel tank.

These reports are filed voluntarily and are designed to help regulators monitor recurring mechanical issues that could prompt airworthiness directives or safety recalls. Officials have not yet determined whether the maintenance findings are connected to Tuesday’s crash.

Aviation attorney Jim Brauchle cautioned that the reports may not provide definitive insight into what caused the disaster.

“We use SDRs often when investigating accidents to look for trends,” he explained. “But since the information is voluntarily reported, you may not always get the full picture.”

Brauchle compared early footage of Tuesday’s crash to the 1979 Chicago disaster, when a DC-10 lost its left engine during takeoff — a tragedy later attributed to maintenance damage to the engine mount.

While the MD-11 model had some reliability challenges when it was first introduced, Brauchle said most of those issues have long been resolved.

According to the Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives, there have been 11 major accidents involving MD-11 aircraft. This week’s tragedy marks the first fatal crash involving an MD-11 since 2009.