Continental (Airlines) blamed for Concorde crash

[bin.dare]

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=593205

A shard of metal which fell from a Continental jet and a weakness in Concorde's design caused the Paris crash in July 2000 which killed 113 and ended the career of the Franco-British supersonic plane, a French prosecutor said yesterday.

Although the provisional findings of the criminal investigation closely followed those of the official accident report three years ago, they could open the way to legal action against Continental Airlines officials and ground staff. Paris-based staff of the American company have to give evidence to an investigating judge in February. Senior executives of Continental in the US, including the CEO, Gordon Bethune, have been asked to attend a similar hearing in March. Lawyers for the families of victims said they would push for Continental officials to be placed under formal investigation, one step short of a charge, but prosecution officials said that this was not yet envisaged.

...

Whether it would be possible to bring such charges against Continental employees or bosses is unclear. The criminal, or judicial investigation, has confirmed the earlier French accident bureau findings that a chain reaction of blunders and weaknesses led the chartered, US-bound Concorde to burst into flames soon after take-off from Charles de Gaulle. The aircraft hit a hotel at Gonesse, three miles from the airport.

After a four-year investigation, including a near-complete reassembly of the fragmented aircraft, the investigating judges said the "immediate cause" of the accident was a burst tyre, caused by a piece of titanium dropped on the runway by the Continental jumbo jet in front of the Concorde. The debris from the tyre penetrated a wing, causing a fire in a petrol tank, which led the supersonic aircraft to lose power, fail to gain sufficient height on take off and then crash.

(more)

[northzax]

1. well damn

I was in France when this happened, what a mess. Seems to me like there is plenty of 'blame' to go around, If Continental was somehow negligent in their maintenance that led to this issue, (how often do shard of titanium fall off aircraft, anyway?) then they should share some sulpability. But on the other hand, I have been on several airliners who blew tires on landing, it actually happens quite often, and whould not lead to the explosion of the plane, The fact that there is debris on the runways of airports is not a real shock, the fact that a five dollar chunk of metal could blow up the concorde is, however. Sounds like a freak accident to me.

I know it's hard to take in our litigious, 'blame someone' society, but sometime a string of unfortunate events occur, where one or two of them happening independantly aren't even noticable, but combined in just the right circumstance, cause destruction. This sounds to me like a one in a million shot, unpredictable and probably unrepeatable. (caveat: if the BA/AirFrance engineering team that built and maintained the Concorde knew that the fuel tanks were vulnerable ot such an incident and did nothing, that's another story)

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. .........

[high density]

3. Continental's DC-10 might have been falling apart

...But an aircraft shouldn't burst into flames after having a tire blow out!

(I'm not sure why the article cites a Continental 747, because all previous reports have said it was a DC-10 that the "wear strip" fell off of. Plus I don't think Continental has flown any 747s since the mid 1990s.)

[TO Kid]

4. Blowouts are a huge problem

Not usually serious on landings but on takeoff can be disastrous. In one case in Toronto a DC9 lost an engine during the takeoff roll when debris from a blown tire was sucked into the engine. In an even worse case, a DC8 took of from Jeddah with one of the tires underinflated. The tire blew and caused the wheels to jam during the roll; the friction caused it to catch fire. The landing gear was raised while the tire was still burning and the plane then burst into flames during the climb.

[donco6]

5. I agree

It seems to me that running over debris on an airstrip is a highly likely occurence that should be designed for as much as possible.

I remember the video of this incident - horrifying! Those poor people.

[napi21]

6. There are some things you just cannot design around.

Airports are very careful to make sure as much as possible that there is no debris on runways. So is the crew on a carrier deck. It's called FOD Foreigh Object Damage Debris.

I didn't hear exactly what this titanius piece was that fell off the Continental flight. It could have been something unforeseen, but if it was a maintenence failure of any kind, Continental will have to bite the bullet.

[high density]

7. It was a 44cm long "wear stip"

The strip that killed 113 people:



You can see where the strip is supposed to be in these photos:






Preliminary report on the accident: http://www.bea-fr.org/docs/f-sc000725ae/htm/f-sc000725ae.html (HTML)

Final report: http://www.bea-fr.org/docspa/2000/f-sc000725a/pdf/f-sc000725a.pdf (16400KB PDF file)

[Bono71]

8. Wow...kind of sobering...I think I'll have three drinks next time I fly,

rather than the customary 2...I hate flying, should have known better than to read this thread.