Originally Posted by
jmd001
One of my former bosses (a Ph.D. whose specialty was aircraft structures and whose technical expertise I greatly respected) refused to travel if any leg of a proposed trip was operated with a DC-10. He was adamant that there were many structural flaws in that aircraft (as originally designed). He would not fly on one ... and told everyone so, particular after the AA Flight 191 out of ORD where an engine separated from the wing shortly after takeoff. (NTSB concluded that separation was the result of a maintenance error, but my boss's view was that it was a flaw the structural design was not tolerant to that particular maintenance error.)
Caveat: While I can't believe it affected his judgement, I do need to caveat his view with the fact that he worked for Lockheed-California in the late 60's and early 70's (i.e., the time frame when the DC-10 and L-1011 were being designed and developed). Working on the L-1011 was never his primary job, but he was brought into provide expert consultation related to the design of the L-1011 empenage.
There was a slogan on the factory floor at McDonnell-Douglas when the DC-10 was being prototyped: "Fly before they roll." "They" were Lockheed. The DC-10 guys knew their plane and the TriStar were similar-layout aircraft chasing the same limited sub-747 trijet market. They figured whichever plane made it to market faster would score more orders and possibly even run the other program out of business. So the hustle was on to put the DC-10 in the air before the TriStar's ceremonial rollout could occur.
McDonnell-Douglas achieved this, but by cutting certain corners and omitting redundant systems. The Turkish crash occurred because when the lower rear cargo door blew out and the cabin floor collapsed from depressurization, it severed all the controls connected to the rear engine / tailplane. Boeings have redundant control lines running through the roof. The DC-10 guys cut them out to save time and money.
The results were tragic in lots of ways: the L-1011 was the more advanced, better-designed airplane, but the extra time Lockheed took cost them orders and they only built about 250 copies. The failure drove Lockheed out of the airliner business. The snakebit DC-10 eventually had its FAA airworthiness cert pulled in 1979. By the time its problems were fixed, there were only a few years to go before ETOPS certs for big twins made trijets yesterday's news.
By the time the DC-10 came into its own, in the '80s, it was no longer economical.