Profile-McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Part 11

By the end of 1971 the DC-10 had been chosen by at least 20 airlines. However, upon entering airline service, the DC-1O began to suffer from numerous teething ‘incidents’ relating to the failure of cabin pressurisation, cargo doors coming open or failing to close properly and escape slides, which were loaded into the base of the passenger doors, inexplicably inflating. There were also some major engine failures including an inflight breakup of the No. 2 (tail) engine.

A potentially far more serious mishap occurred to American Airlines DC-10-10 No. N103AA, Flight 96 en route from Los Angeles, California, to La Guardia, New York, on June 12, 1972. After taking off from Detroit the door latches of the rear cargo compartment failed causing the door to burst open and be wrenched off by the slipstream. Explosive decompression made the rear section of the passenger cabin’s main floor collapse downwards through control cables and wiring leading to the tail. These were located through the beams that held the passenger floor in position and they either snapped completely or were stretched and jammed rendering the majority of the tail’s control surfaces inoperative and reducing the No. 2 engine’s power. Fortunately, Captain Bryce McCormick and his crew managed to land safely back at Detroit where all on board made an emergency evacuation of the crippled aircraft. Flight 96 had come perilously close to a major disaster.

History repeated itself catastrophically on March 3, 1974, when THY Turkish Airlines Flight No. 981, a DC-10-1O bound from Turkey to London via Paris, took off from Orly Airport and 15 minutes later crashed down into the Forest of Ermenonville, north east of the French capital. All 364 people on board were killed This aircraft, like American Airlines Flight 96, had suffered explosive decompression when its cargo door failed and this time the result was history’s worst aviation disaster to date.

The DC-10 now received unprecedented, controversial and damning publicity. Some newspaper articles insisted that the type should never be allowed to fly again and there were a number of books published ‘investigating’ the aircraft. These alleged that there were serious design faults and criticism was levelled particularly at the plane’s cargo door latch mechanism, weaknesses in the passenger floor and the positioning of the control cables and electrical wiring leading from the cockpit to the tail through beams holding the main floor. Accusations were also aimed at the airlines and McDonnell Douglas for failing to modify existing machines, and aircraft coming off the assembly line, in accordance with various company Service Bulletins.

Compulsory changes were made to the cargo compartment door latches and DC-10s not only remained flying but also continued to sell well. Over the years there were several other accidents which, after investigation, were shown not to be the fault of the aircraft but another terrible disaster occurred on May 25, 1979, when the No. 1 engine departed an American Airlines DC-10-10. The slat on that wing retracted causing the machine to roll to the left and plunge into an inverted crash killing all on board. This time FAA certification was withdrawn and all aircraft were grounded while there was a detailed investigation. The conclusions reached attributed the accident to faulty maintenance procedures by the airline.

End of the Line

The DC-10 managed to survive all the withering publicity only to encounter the tight economic conditions of the early 1980s. At the beginning,g it had been anticipated that orders for the aircraft would reach the 1,000 mark by the 1990s but this was not meant to be. Nevertheless, a healthy total of 446 DC-1Os and 60 KC-10A Extenders were built and the last rolled off the assembly line early in 1989. This was a DC-10-30 which was delivered to Nigeria Airways as a replacement, incidentally, for one lost in a crash in 1987.

This aircraft also marked the end of the illustrious DC ‘Douglas Commercial’ line, the designation which was first used for the DC-1 way back on July 1, 1933. The majority of people, pilots, customers and passengers alike, have come to consider the DC-10 as one of the best commercial transport aircraft to have taken to the air. Certainly for many years to come the MDC trijet will feature in the front line inventory of many of the world’s premier airlines.