This will get ugly

[Craig.]

The thing that everyone is missing is that the French legal system demands this sort of questioning in all types of accident. They are not trying to lay blame .... just establish the complete picture.

Of course they are trying to lay blame, if they wernt they wouldnt be naming specific people from one airline they wanted to summon.

[Hagar]

The thing that everyone is missing is that the French legal system demands this sort of questioning in all types of accident. They are not trying to lay blame .... just establish the complete picture.

This seems a very good point. I have no knowledge of the French legal system but it seems to me they left any inquiry a liitle late to do any good. The tragic accident, incident or whatever you like to call it, happened over 4 years ago. Since then, Concorde was modified at great expense before being retired from service, partly as a result of the Paris crash. It's highly unlikely that one will ever fly again.

There is an "acceptable risk" element with any piece of machinery. Many of us travel in aircraft & other vehicles or drive our own cars with potentionally dangerous faults that have never been rectified despite the manufacturers & authorities being fully aware of them. A certain percentage of serious injury & deaths caused by the product is regarded as acceptable. No company these days would dare accept responsiblity for fear of being sued & possibly made bankrupt.

[forfun]

there was always going to be a puncture in its lifetime comment. No there wasnt, it was an accident, nobody could have known it would happen, if anything it was down the bottom of the list of likely scenarios

Thats a rather strange thing to say. I agree nonone would of  ever thought it would have hit the fuel tank, so your right on that point. But the landing gear is one of the most crucial parts of an aeroplane, Punctures happen, i have seen two so far on the concorde, one resulted in the crash we'r talking about. It's rather silly to assume that there will never be punctures if you are designing a supersonic airliner.

[Craig.]

I am not saying they didnt predict punctures your right they did. However in tests none of them caused the damage that was caused during the crash. Now i havent seen the full evidence reports, or various other bits of paperwork, but i am thinking this piece of titanium also struck the wing, add that into the long term wear on the metal which will have softened it, weakend it over time. Perhaps Airfrance should look at themselves for not constantly checking these things.

[forfun]

Thats a good point, i remember watching a documentry on this as well, it says the fuel tanks already were reinforced once before, in the 90's.

Also, my understanding is that the titanium strip from the continental struck the tire causing a punture and the fragment s form the tire flung up and hit the fuel tanks causing them to break, thus leaking fuel into the engine and causing an explosion.

[Craig.]

yeah thats pretty much what i heard, i am still unclear whether or not the titanium along with the tyre fragments also hit the wing. Its amazing how sharp the metal is and thats the sort of damage it could cause.

[forfun]

What i'm worried about these days in aviation is that economics seems to come before safety. The cost of grounding aircraft to fix faults and things is great enough for the airlines not to do it.

This is true with that 747's cargo door that burst open killing about 23 people. The airlines did not fix the problem because of the loss of bussiness over the time it would have took to fix the door, that decision resulted in many people getting killed and the aircraft being written off.

I jst think it's getting out of hand. And airlines are thinking deaths and accidents are just the cost of dong bussiness

[Craig.]

I think the biggest problem with taking concorde out of service for both BA and Air France, was the fact  it was their flagship. There were many small problems which if the plane would have been taken out for a refit could have been fixed permanently, however they chose not to and decided to continually fix the problem as it happend. Your right though its definatly about the economics, too bad that it takes the loss of life to get things to change.

[Hagar]

I don't think there's any doubt as to what caused the accident. The original accident investigation report in 2000 identified that. All Concordes were immediately grounded pending the investigators report. The purpose of this report was to investigate the cause & make recommendations to prevent it happening again.

[Craig.]

Again, BA's concordes were involved in less incidents (pieces falling off and so on) than Air France. A guy who worked on Concorde for BA who used to post on Anet, would talk about how Airfrance were coming to BA quite often for spares and rudders, among other things

[forfun]

Did the companies have to ground the Concorde??  Was there a bann on Concordes or what? I don't understand why they all went out of service when BA could have easily fixed the problems and continued with the service.

[Craig.]

The solution, wasnt an easy fix. It took a lot of time for BA and air france to upgrade the tank lining. However BA also saw it as an opportunity, with Air France being Grounded indefinatly and BA knowing they would soon face the same problem, they took theirs out of service early and used the extra time to upgrade the interiors aswell as the saftey side. Air France chose not to do the same and as a result i feel they really missed an opportunity.

[Hagar]

There was no quick fix. It's common practice to ground all aircraft after a serious accident awaiting the report. A similar thing happened after the BOAC Comet crashes. The Concorde accident report recommendations took several months to complete, almost a year I believe.

[forfun]

But why did BA's concordes go out of service, they could'v kept them in couldn't they?, There was no law stopping them was there?

Also, what happened to Branson's offer? Is he still keen?

[Craig.]

I think they were grounded once the investigation started. However Nobody wanted to fly on her after the accident. And when tickets cost thousands, without the back up of tourists who are more interested in saving money than the safety of an aircraft sometimes. It just couldnt survive. So BA saw they could save themselves the money and embarressment and took it out of service. They then reinvented her, got everything read for its certification, so they could attract new customers. Again sadly it didnt work