LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The UPS plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport just after 5 p.m. Tuesday was a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, a wide-body cargo jet used for long-haul flights.

The MD-11 is a long-range, tri-jet aircraft developed by McDonnell Douglas in the late 1980s and later produced by Boeing after the companies merged in 1997.

Other incidents involving the aircraft have happened in the past, including hard landings and tail strikes linked to its flight-control characteristics.

Notable crashes:

FedEx Express Flight 14 in 1997, a cargo flight from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey, suffered a hard landing that caused the aircraft to overturn. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued recommendations afterward to improve MD-

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