By Drew FitzGerald

United Parcel Service said it has retired its fleet of MD-11 jets after a deadly crash near its Louisville cargo hub in November.

UPS said Tuesday that it had pulled forward plans to modernize its aircraft fleet and finished the MD-11 retirements by the end of last year. The package-delivery giant wrote off the value of the jets and recorded a noncash charge of $137 million in the fourth quarter.

Chief Executive Carol Tomé said the company would replace much of the capacity provided by MD-11s with Boeing 767 planes over the next year or so.

UPS owned about 30 MD-11 jets before the November accident. McDonnell Douglas, now owned by Boeing, in 1991 manufactured the plane that crashed in Louisville. UPS converted the plane to carry cargo in 2006.

The National Transportation Safety Board is continuing its probe into the crash, which killed three crew members and 12 people on the ground.

The Federal Aviation Administration last year grounded all MD-11s from flying until it confirms there isn't a fleetwide problem in connection with the crash. The order mostly affected UPS and rival FedEx.

The NTSB this month said that Boeing knew of cracks in MD-11 bearing assemblies nearly 15 years ago. The plane maker advised carriers in a 2011 letter of at least four examples of the component cracks but didn't require the operators to replace them.

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January 27, 2026 11:21 ET (16:21 GMT)

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