Originally Posted by
booke23
There is quite a bit of mis-information on this thread.
Extracts from the BEA report:-
"The wheels were manufactured by Dunlop, and the tyres used by Air France were
manufactured by Goodyear in the United States. No retread tyres have been used since 1996."
Page 37 of the report has a diagram showing the ground track of the aircraft on the runway. This data is derived from the ground radar and as such is very accurate. It clearly shows the aircraft was tracking the centre line of the runway until after it had hit the strip. In other words, the missing spacer did not cause the aircraft to veer left....loss of thrust on the left side was the cause.
I think the report could have been more comprehensive. As already mentioned there was no investigation into the affect of the misaligned tyre running over the strip. Did that misalignment cause the tyre to fail more catastrophically than it otherwise would? We'll never know.
Thank you brooke. That was why I had referred people to the BEA report and its findings.
I had mentioned the tyre construction because as you point out AF had used retreads in the past. During the investigation testing was carried out to demonstrate the effect of failures of various types of tyre construction.
It is correct to say that the French preferred to focus on the tyres while the UK felt that (because of the number of previous tyre failures) that fitting the Kevlar Liners to the fuel tanks would improve safety. BA were very keen to restore Concorde airworthiness as their operations had been quite profitable.
Hope this clarifies the situation.