UPS never required the detailed inspections needed to spot the problem that led to an engine to fly off one of its planes before it crashed even after Boeing recommended it years earlier, according to new documents posted Wednesday by crash investigators.
But UPS said in its own submission to the National Transportation Safety Board that the reason it never required those enhanced bearing inspections inside the pylons that hold the engines to the wings of its MD–11 freighters is because Boeing said incorrectly that the failure of those bearings wouldn’t jeopardize the safety of flight. And the enhanced inspections were never required.
The plane crashed last fall while accelerating down the runway at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport, killing killed all three pilots and 12 people on the ground. Twenty-three more were injured…