Well, I consider that it was inevitable that this accident happened. There were five other incidents where tire bursts led to fuel tank punctures. The data was there to see that a catastrophe was inevitable. The data was analyzed and the wrong conclusion was reached. It's just like the case of frozen insulation hitting the wing of the Space Shuttle. It doesn't matter exactly which piece of insulation hit the wing, the fact is the accident was ineveitable and nothing was done. I feel that in the case of Concorde, the ones truly responsible are grasping for something to deflect the blame. In the case of NASA, they have no such second party to blame.
If the need to resist FOD was not the real root cause of the catastrophe, then why was the airworthiness withdrawn till the airplane was reinforced? Otherwise, a different direction would have been taken. We would have airplane inspectors stationed at inspection stations at the aiport, making sure every piece of metal on the exterior of the airplane was secure, and we would have very frequent runway inspections to verify they were free of debris.
The example of a part of an airplane falling off and hitting an auto is not a proper example. The automobile is not expected to operate safely in the presence of falling debris. The airplane is expected to operate safely in the presence of FOD on the runway, just like the shuttle is expected to operate correctly in the environment it is launched in.
Thanks to everyone for the (generally) excellent level of discourse in this thread. I suspect we won't ever see eye to eye on it, but I have learned a lot from the discussion.
--ev--