Quote Originally Posted by hiss srq
Just playing with scenarios here and being a armchair investigator if you may. I do not know what the loads were on this airplane or how the weight and balance was done for this flight but could it possible that if not heavily loaded and they experinced a number two engine failure it could lighten the control forces enough to induce a tail strike?
Interesting scenario but I doubt it. If the MD-11 is anything like the DC-10 it will not fly itself off the ground, you have to physically rotate it to a nose high attitude to start producing lift. I don't think losing the #2 engine prior to rotation would cause the #1 and #3 engines to cause the nose to lift up. Even if the #2 engine failed at rotation and the "downward" thrust the #2 produces was lost, if they were so light they were probably rotating to a pitch attitude of 16-19 degrees NH and it would have had to been a very abrupt rotation to the target pitch setting or higher to produce a violent tailstrike.