It apparently flew up and punctured Concorde’s fuel tanks causing it to spew kerosene which caught fire, downing the plane.
No! That's a (rather common) misunderstanding.
As stated just above by infrequentflyer789, the
catastrophic nature of the tank failure was not due to (relatively small) punctures by this or that endogen "flying piece" from the U/C, but due to the hydrodynamic ram effect which ejected a large part (hence a really big fuel leak) of the tank/intrados panel.
That's a major difference (as per the BEA) between the 2000 accident and previous occurence of tanks puncturings on the type (e.g. the '79 accident in Washington).
Originally Posted by
27/09
Rather than the titanium strip I prefer the story about the missing spacer on the undercarriage causing the aircraft to diverge from the centre line taking out runways lights which caused the puncture.
If one takes aside his personal preference, one has to discuss about
:
- the fact that rubber gum (matching with Concorde tyres) was found on the titanium strip
- the fact that the cutting of the tyre is compatible with the dimensions/shape/strengh of the titanium strip
- the fact that no Concorde tyres had ever split up into chunks that large (impacting the fuselage with such force) without exogen causes (strip)
- the fact that the runways lights taken out were impacted significantly after the aircraft caught fire, as demonstrated by the evidences on the scene.
- the fact that the aircraft maintained the centre line with no apparent difficulties until thrust was reduced (due to fire) on left hand engines
Now, those facts are from the BEA report. I'm aware of "conspirationnist" (or not so) theories about how the BEA would never have accused the plane, the company, the country. But I'll wait to hear for counter-proofs (or plausible analysis) before jumping to different conclusion that those in the report.
And for now, I remain unsatisfied on that topic.