Originally Posted by
tdracer
Since we're on the subject of Concorde, I was watching an "Air Disasters' episode last weekend that touched on the Paris Concorde crash.
It got me thinking - what was the final straw that led to the crash? Was a very heavy Concorde unable to maintain altitude with two engines out? Or did the raging fire do critical flight control damage? Combination there of?
Too many factors cascading, but the ignition of leaking fuel led to major changes, including the crew shutting down an engine due to fire warning and the melting of considerable portions of the wing. Per the accident report a large contributor was a defective landing gear that, with one tire gone, swiveled and forced the plane off the runway where one engine ate a light. There was also a suggestion that additional drag from the misaligned gear slowed the takeoff which would otherwise have left the runway before contacting the metal strip. There were also overweight, tailwind, and leaving the ground below the calculated minimum airspeed.
Final Destination and Dead Like Me both offered more likely scenarios than the stack up of factors required for the Concorde crash.