Seventeen Feet: How FedEx Flight 14 Turned Fatal in a Second

Aviation Survival Stories · Jul 22, 2026 · 18m

Seventeen Feet: How FedEx Flight 14 Turned Fatal in a Second

Fear of the last instant - at seventeen feet above Newark’s runway a well-known MD-11 freighter named Joshua was flying normally, and one second later it was inverted and burning on the grass. The aircraft had 13,034 flight hours, the left engine thrust reverser was inoperative, and 1,100 feet of runway separated the first touchdown from the point the airplane was no longer salvageable - so what single second changed everything?

In this episode, we tell the factual sequence of Flight 14’s final approach, the aircraft history and…