Earlier this morning, a UPS MD-11F operating a flight to Louisville declared an emergency and u-turned back to San Antonio.
Information is limited following the incident, but here is what we know so far.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
5X9500 – San Antonio to Louisville…
UPS flight 5X9500, which was involved in an emergency is a routine scheduled flight between San Antonio and Louisville.
The aircraft involved in the incident is registered as N278UP.
As per data from Planespotters.net, N278UP is a 29.1 year old McDonnell Douglas MD-11F that started out life with Japan Airlines in April 1995.
By August 2004, the aircraft was converted into a freighter and sent to UPS.
Of the MD-11F variant, the American freighter company has 31 of them in the fleet, of which all are in active service.
Furthermore, average fleet age for the variant at the carrier stands at 29.6 years.
UPS flight 5X9500 departed San Antonio at 0156 local time this morning and initially climbed out to Louisville.
At around 13,300 feet, the crew made a u-turn back to the departure field.
Whilst the MD-11F was descending back into SAT, an emergency was declared via the 7700 squawk code.
UPS flight 5X9500 bound for Louisville, landed safely into San Antonio at 0223 local time without further incident.
Aircraft Still Grounded…
At the time of writing (10/4/24 @ 1050 UK time), N278UP, the MD-11F remains grounded following the emergency onboard UPS flight 5X9500 between San Antonio & Louisville.
No further information has been released regarding the cause of the emergency.
As soon as we have more information pertinent to this, then we will update this article accordingly.
But for now, all eyes will be on when the aircraft returns to commercial service.
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