Trial into Concorde crash to commence

[VEGAS]

Now begins the enquiry into exactly who is to blame.

Interesting to hear that up to 20 witnesses claim to have seen fire on the aircraft before it hit the metal fod.


http://itn.co.uk/6791c3f58cc6d5d0f0880d4ca6cb6e49.html

[airboatr]

hard to pick who's to blame , as if one person or action was the reason for the accident.
while the metal part on the runway didn't help, Concorde had nearly 60 tyre failures over the years in sevice ,
one failure sent rubber completely through the wing, and a number of tank damage incidents had been recorded

add to that there were two runway inspections reported.
That doesn't sound too good...A hunk of metal, ...big enough to destroy a Concordes' tyre
and safety protections of it's fuel tank was missed more than twice I say.
as I'm sure there were more than one pair of eyes looking for FOD.

It was a tragic sad accident, nobody should be hung for it . Its only purpose imo is to teach what happens when people live and breath. things happen.

hang all the shoulda woulda coulda and what might have beens..... they didn't happen, funny thing they never do.

[basys]

Hi Folks

add to that there were two runway inspections reported.

From the BEA report -

1.10.2.2 The inspections on 25 July 2000

On July 25 at around 4 h 30(11), a “Follow Me” vehicle performed a runway inspection in two passes. Nothing unusual was reported.

At around 14 h 30, a “Follow Me” vehicle performed a partial runway inspection in the area of taxiway W2 following a suspicion of a bird strike.

Between 14 h 35 and 15 h 10, an exercise with several fire brigade vehicles took place on runways 26 right and 26 left.

Taking into account this exercise,
the runway inspection planned for 15 h 00 was put back.

It had not been carried out at the time the Concorde took off (16 h 42 min 30s).

i.e.
There was no full runway inspection since 04 h 30, (12 h 12 min previously).

The supposed causative debris, identified as being from the DC 10, (reg N13067)
was deposited 2 departures immediately prior that of Concorde.

It was found in the slab area prior to the sooted area.

HTH
ATB
Paul

[Chris558]

Typical that we heard the likes of.. "It should have had the necessary fuel tank protection fitted to prevent such an accident".

That option was obviously excused for whatever reason, perhaps because of the nature of the design, perhaps because the cost couldn't be justified on a low profit making Airliner. But sadly, that's life.

The fact that Concorde got the mods after the accident was more 'political' than 'engineer-ical'. It had to done to prove such a disaster would never happen again.

All that expense... and then a couple of years later Concorde is dead...crazy.

[airboatr]

Paul

Exactly . The thing was known to have troubles so , they couldn't have made a run up the runway to check for Concorde

it would have cost a fraction of a fraction of the cost incurred of the accident and subsequent mods to the plane.

..... if only.

[AllanL]

IIRC what got Continental and the relevant staff into hot water was the fact that the piece of metal was an un-approved cheaper third party replacement for the original.

Whether or not that reduced the safety of the installation was not the point.

[basys]

Hi Folks

airboatr -
Agreed.

However,
seemingly its been an "accident waiting to happen" since 1969.

Allan -
Not so much the cost, rather the means/security of attachment,
(despite 12 utilised from 36 potential securing holes, of which 24 were seemingly unapproved mods).

All nonwithstanding,
those sections of fuel tank
which after the event,
were located remaining on the runway.

Or the potential effects of the missing left bogie spacer on added drag and tyre susceptibility,
and from my reading,
the report's non-inclusion of equivalent threshold distance data for a normal Concorde take-off sequence.

We all have armchairs.

ATB
Paul

[Garry Russell]

It has also been said that there was a spacer missing from the Concodes brakes or axle that cause the wheel to shimmy and the aircraft to pull to the side damaging lights and blowing the tyre and nothing to do with debris from another aircraft.

It will be interesting to se what comes out of this.

[airboatr]

I read the left bogie was changed and a spacer was accidently (just quoting) left out.

plus it was some 1200kg over weight...

[Nigel H-J]

Interesting to hear that up to 20 witnesses claim to have seen fire on the aircraft before it hit the metal fod.

Interesting indeed Eddie, just like to know when they watched Concorde take-off did they actually see the debris rise up and hit the aircraft?

All speculation on my part but will be interesting non-the-less from hearing the evidence from both sides as to whether she caught fire before the debris impacted.

Nigel.