In order for the reverse thrust to work the engine cover slides backwards to allow the air to be blown forwards, perhaps at this point it caught the panel behind it and forced it off.

For all we know the engine could have hit the tarmac although that seems highly unlikely as the Md-11 has a high angle of attack when touching down compared to other aircraft.

Not sure if it hit the runway or not. I was at the terminal taking photos as it landed and Thai 777 aircrew ( who were on Taxi down to the bay, 34L) alerted the tower to some debris on the runway from the FED-EX aircraft. The tower organised a clean up. During this time QF A380 and SIA 747F conducted Go-Arounds.

Just in my opinion, from the damage it looks like it hit, there is quite a big chunk missing. Can the force of the reverse thruster going back in place cause this damage?:confused:

There were a few people behind the old control tower waiting for the A380 including Tim who added his pfoto of the engine on Jetphotos. They might know what happened.

They would have had to drop her on the deck real hard to have an engine strike the runway, the MD-11 touches down with a high nose up pitch.

You obviously haven't seen lots of MD-11 landings....;)

Nige, when the MD-11 was in service as a passenger aircraft I was probably just a baby, seen plenty of FedEx and UPS touchdown but nothing that ever caused any sort of alarm. Are there any good clips on YouTube of bad MD-11 landings? If someone knows of any links would be appreciated.

This one is pretty bad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFpDHHYTns0

Holy crap Batman, that was a seriously bad landing AJ. Although, being in a typhoon and all probably didn't make it easy.

... and after 10 hours of watching YouTube links, I'm back...

mate of mine is a pilot for fedex told him about what happened to the MD.
He told me that it had a thrust reverser jackscrew break. trying to stow it on rollout dorked it all up

Blake thanks for the confirmation mate.