The McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 is a three-engine widebody jet airliner manufactured between 1971 and 1989. The DC-10 has sufficient range for medium to long-haul flights, capable of carrying a maximum 380 passengers. Its most distinguishing feature is the two turbofan engines mounted on underwing pylons and a third engine at the base of the fin. The model was a successor to the McDonnell Douglas DC-8 for long-range operations, and competed in the same markets as the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, which has a similar layout to the DC-10.
The series 30 was the longer range "international" version of the original medium range DC-10-10. One of the main visible differences between the models is that the series 10 has three sets of landing gear (one front and two main) while the series 30 has four sets of landing gear (one front, one in each wing and one in the centre fuselage). The centre main two - wheel landing gear (which extends from the centre of the fuselage) was added to accommodate the extra weight of the -30 variant by distributing the weight and providing additional braking. The series 30 had an absolute maximum range of 6,220 miles, which came down to a maximum range with a full payload of 4,604 miles.
Eventually, the DC-10 became the best known and most popular of the three-engined airliners. They eventually built 446 of these aircraft in their different variants with the last and final DC-10 being rolled off the production line in December 1988 destined for Nigeria Airways in July 1989. Biman Bangladesh Airlines was the last commercial carrier to operate the DC-10 in passenger service and their last regularly scheduled DC-10 passenger flight was on December 7, 2013. The airline flew the DC-10 on a charter passenger flight on February 20, 2014, from Dhaka, Bangladesh to Birmingham, UK. Local charter flights were also flown until February 24, 2014. As of July 2013, there were 69 DC-10s and MD-10s in airline service as dedicated freighter aircraft with operators FedEx Express (62 aircraft), Kelowna Flightcraft Air Charter (4 aircraft), and 3 freight aircraft with smaller airlines.