N522AX

N522AX is a Boeing-Mcdonnell Douglas Boeing (Douglas) DC 10-10/30/40, a tri-engine jet operated by BC AIRCRAFT LEASING LLC. SkyMeter has tracked 582 flights totalling 933 hours of airtime via ADS-B across 2 callsigns. The most frequent segment is KABQ to KABQ. Service window in our records spans 498 days. Of those flights, 22 (3.8%) carry at least one detected incident: a go-around, unstable approach, stall warning, or runway excursion. The Boeing-Mcdonnell Douglas Boeing (Douglas) DC 10-10/30/40 has a 165 ft wingspan, a maximum takeoff weight of 580,000 lb.

About the Boeing-Mcdonnell Douglas Boeing (Douglas) DC 10-10/30/40

The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 was the world's second widebody trijet, entering service in 1971 as American Airlines' answer to the Boeing 747 on transcontinental routes. Its distinctive three-engine configuration (two wing-mounted turbofans plus a third embedded in the vertical stabilizer) gave it exceptional range and hot-and-high performance, making it a workhorse on long-haul routes from Los Angeles to Honolulu and across the Atlantic. The DC-10-30 variant, with its 6,220-nautical-mile range and 555,000-pound maximum takeoff weight, could carry 380 passengers nonstop from New York to Tokyo, a capability that made it a favorite of international carriers throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Though early accidents led to design modifications and intense scrutiny, the type matured into a reliable platform that logged millions of flight hours across passenger, cargo, and military tanker roles. The DC-10's high cruising speed of Mach 0.88 and 42,000-foot service ceiling kept it competitive with twin-engine widebodies well into the 1990s. Today the type survives primarily as a freighter and aerial firefighting tanker, with operators converting retired passenger frames for cargo and fire-suppression missions.

The DC-10's rugged airframe and powerful General Electric CF6 or Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines give it the payload capacity and performance needed for heavy-lift operations that newer twins cannot always match economically. SkyMeter has tracked flights across airframes and operators over routes, with () the largest observed operator.