This plane exists mostly due to an airline, a reason that's quite common in the aviation industry. In the second half of the sixties, American Airlines went to McDonnell Douglas. The airline was looking for a new aircraft for 250 to 400 passengers. The planes the upcoming customer used back then were getting old. The American manufacturer presented an idea for a two-engined aircraft, but as the launch customer insisted on it, a third engine was added. But not only McDonnell Douglas was contacted, American gave Lockheed the same assignment. They designed the TriStar for the 'contest'. Meanwhile, the airline had thought of a quite sneaky plan: by acting as they were very interested in the TriStar, they hoped McDonnell Douglas, that saw a massive order going to a big rival, lowered the price of the DC-10, which happened. That meant the end of Lockheed as manufacturer of commercial aircraft and the start of a successful career for the DC-10.

A big advantage of the DC-10 over the TriStar was the number of engines it could be equipped with. Lockheed got into trouble because the only engine builder that chose to supply the power sources for their aircraft went bankrupt. It was almost the end of the plane. By interference of multiple government, both survived, but it was a heavy blow for the jet. McDonnell Douglas was also ahead with the production of new engines. It took a couple of months to make a design, test it and prepare it for use on the plane. The rival was busy for years before this process ended.
In six crashes, 948 people died. A couple of these disasters caused doubts on the design of the aircraft. The death of 346 passengers turned the world upside down when Turkish Airlines flight 981 crashed: a brandnew plane was involved in the (back then) largest air crash ever. The cause proved to be a blown-out cargo door. Flight 96 of American Airlines faced this problem as well, but the pilots managed to land their DC-10 safely. The locking mechanism of the cargo door was redesigned.
In 1979, American Airlines flight 191 lost its left engine, which led to the death of 273 people. This crash was instigated by wrong maintenance. The construction manual said to first take off the engine, then separate the engine support from the wing. The technicians American Airlines and Continental Airlines worked out a way to do it quicker and removed them in one go. After the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all American DC-10's for a period of 37 days. That made 12% of the American passenger fleet non-active. A number of airlines almost got into a severe financial thunderstorm. Both American Airlines as Continental Airlines were rewarded with large fines, but obviously, the manufacturer wasn't happy with all these publicity. It feared that no passenger would want to fly in a DC-10 ever again. But that fear seamed undeserved. When the safety problems were solved, the aircraft started a successful career.
The solid plane even proved to be made of iron when a DC-10 of cargo airline Federal Express was hi-jacked. On April 7, 1994, a suicidal employee of the firm got on board the plane en route to California. He was frustrated very much that he became a flight engineer, although he had a pilot licence. His marriage stranded and he didn't see his kids anymore. His life didn't have any value for him. But he did grant his children a good future. To make it possible for them to study the things they wanted, he needed a lot of money. He came up with the ruthless idea to get killed in an aviation accident, which resulted in his surviving relatives being able to claim a compensation. The crew of flight 705 could impossibly think of what awaited them when their colleague boarded their aircraft. The hitch hiker was dressed in uniform. Nobody who checked him. Just as handy he smuggled his guitar case full with weapons on board of the DC-10, he was with the Cockpit Voice Recorder: nobody was allowed to find out what happened in the cockpit. He knew that the recorder would overwrite itself after half an hour and wanted, after he 'inactivated' the crew, to fly on for thirty minutes to land the aircraft in the headquarters of FedEx (in Memphis, Tennessee, United States).
A few minutes after take-off, the hi-jacker struck. With hammers and a harpoon, he started hitting the crew. A massive fight came into being and eventually moved to after the cockpit. Meanwhile, one of the heavy bleeding crew members managed to get his hands on the yoke again. This man, a former fighter pilot, did all kinds of things with his aircraft to make the attacker tumble through the plane: sharp turns, climb- and descend rates of that exceeded the allowed maximum and speeds that were far over the designed top speed of the jet. The fight continued on the ceiling when the pilot almost pulled the DC-10 upside down. Under an angle of 135 degrees, the DC-10 still kept flying. Finally, the crew could overpower the hi-jacker and flew on to Memphis airport. The landing wasn't easy as well: due to the amount of fuel the plane still carried, the plane weight a lot more than its landing gear could withstand. In addition, very strong turns were necessary in the final stage of the flight to actually make it to the runway.
In the aftermath of this event, all crew were rewarded for their bravery and courage. This Gold Medal Awarid is the highest a civil pilot can receive. The hi-jacker was sentenced for life one year later, for attempted murder and hi-jacking. Besides, this 'collegue' took away one of the biggest passions, flying, from all three pilots. The men were harmed so bad, they could never fly a plane again safely. The jet did survive the nearly-crash without problems. After it was refurbished, it was used in the fleet again. In August 2007, it was still operated by the company!

The first drawings for the aircraft were made in 1967. That made it the first plane that was built after the merger of Douglas and McDonnell. The design was meant to serve destinations where the 747 wasn't welcome. That plane was quite some time ahead of its time and was restricted by runway-length and airport facilities. McDonnell Douglas wanted to make some money here with the DC-10, which was able to land at all these airports. The amount of planes sold show this objective was achieved: when the production stopped in 1988, 386 DC-10's were manufacturer. Just to compare: the Boeing 747 was produced almost 1.400 times. But that number includes all versions of the four-engined giant, so also competitors for the newer versions of the DC-10. As with the DC-9, these were given a new name: MD-11. When Boeing took over the airplane company, they produced the MD-10. That's a modernized, although not stretched, model based on the DC-10.

The DC-10 is, without discussion, a characteristic aircraft. The third, sigar-shaped engine that was mounted through the tail is the most clear recognition-item of this plane. Besides that, the nose has a pretty unique design as well. The difference between all the versions is mostly concerning engines, fuel capacity and, as a direct cause of these adjustments, the maximum take-off weight and >flying range.

McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 (1970)

The DC-10-10 is the very first model in the family. The type, which was built 122 times, is suited for domestic flights with a maximum passenger number of 380 people. In a configuration with two classes, this number decreases to 250. Airlines that operated large quantities of this type were United Airlines and launch customer American Airlines. They had 46 and 35 aircraft, most of them sold to FedEx afterwards. Besides a version for passenger transport, McDonnell Douglas had a DC-10-10CF, which was a convertible. This was easily changed from passenger to cargo aircraft and vice versa.

McDonnell Douglas DC-10-15 (1979)

In addition to the -10, McDonnell Douglas introduced the DC-10-15, also known as DC-10 Sport. The plane was specially designed and adjusted for use on high and hot airports (so called high-and-dry-conditions). Furthermore, more powerful were installed. Tis jet was only operated by Mexican airlines.

McDonnell Douglas DC-10-20

The -20 was based on the DC-10-10, but equipped with other engines. Due to minimal interest, this plane wasn't produced. Later on, the name was (almost) used for a subversion of the -30, but because of a request from launch customer Northwest, that was changed into DC-10-40.

McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 (1972)

From 1972 to 1988, the DC-10-30 was in production. This aircraft, with other engines and larger fuel tanks, was the most popular variant of the tri-jet. The type was mostly used by European airlines, like Swissair, Lufthansa and KLM. Besides the 164 'normal' aircraft, 11 'convertibles' and 6 DC-10-30ER's were sold. These had a larger range than the standard DC-10-30's. In addition, the company delivered 10 planes that could only be used as cargo aircraft, the DC-10-30AF's. AF comes from All Freight.

McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40 (1972)

The DC-10-40, which was first going to be called DC-10-20 (what was changed because of marketing intentions), was the first version of the DC-10 that was suited for long-haul flights. The plane was improved a lot, with new engines and a higher maximum take-off weight as most important changes. The 42 jets that were built are almost equally divided between Japan Airlines (20) and Northwest Airlines (22).

McDonnell Douglas didn't only deliver civil aircraft. The most important military version of the DC-10, the KC-10 Extender, was a large air-to-air refuelling aircraft that was used by the American air force. The range is extraordinary big. For the Dutch air force, a special type-number was introduced. The two KDC-10's that the armed forces use are converted DC-10-30CF's formerly operated by Martinair that serve as flying gas station. A third was planned, but the donor aircraft crashed on Faro Airport, Portugal. The 10 Tanker (without DC or anything in the name) was developed for fighting forest fires.
As an extra addition to the programme, Boeing, since 1997 the owner of >McDonnell Douglas, introduced the MD-10. The plane was sold as Boeing: the Boeing MD-10. Only the cockpit was updated. This made it possible for pilots that have a certificate for the MD-11, can also fly this aircraft without any problem. No new planes of this type were built: only a couple of standard DC-10's was changed. All are operated by Federal Express (FedEx).