The video makes it look like the left engine failed catastrophically, and then the smoke or parts falling off of that engine were sucked in by the middle engine causing that engine to lose thrust.
According to the linked CBS article, it was loaded with about 38,000 gallons (172,751 liters) of fuel which if the density of the fuel I used was correct then that’s about 118,000kg (oddly quite a bit off of the ~106,000kg that CBS reported). Add in the empty weight of an MD-11 of 125,870kg and that’s 243,870kg or about 42,000kg shy of the maximum takeoff weight of the MD-11 of 286,000kg. With 20,000 packages on board this thing could’ve been very close its maximum takeoff weight. It should be able to climb with a single engine failure and no other failures at its maximum takeoff weight, but if the middle engine did lose thrust too then there wasn’t anything the crew could’ve done to save themselves or the plane once they made the decision to takeoff.
The video makes it look like the left engine failed catastrophically, and then the smoke or parts falling off of that engine were sucked in by the middle engine causing that engine to lose thrust.
According to the linked CBS article, it was loaded with about 38,000 gallons (172,751 liters) of fuel which if the density of the fuel I used was correct then that’s about 118,000kg (oddly quite a bit off of the ~106,000kg that CBS reported). Add in the empty weight of an MD-11 of 125,870kg and that’s 243,870kg or about 42,000kg shy of the maximum takeoff weight of the MD-11 of 286,000kg. With 20,000 packages on board this thing could’ve been very close its maximum takeoff weight. It should be able to climb with a single engine failure and no other failures at its maximum takeoff weight, but if the middle engine did lose thrust too then there wasn’t anything the crew could’ve done to save themselves or the plane once they made the decision to takeoff.