Wino,
I believe that you may be being unduly pessimistic about the survivability of 'off runway' forced landings or crash landings, and wonder whether you have been unduly influenced by the fact that a belly landing on tarmac may cause less (and less expensive) damage than a gear-down landing on 'dirt'. Bear in mind that Concorde has no underwing engine pods to dig in, and look at how often our expectations are confounded during force-landings - look at that RAF Nimrod (Comet) which pulled off a successful ditching in which the only injuries were a broken thumb and kerosene ingestion related inflammation of one chap's throat. With the severity of the fire however, it naturally didn't look good....
Exeng,
You say: "Clearly taxing out in excess of the max structural weight (by one tonne) cannot be condoned but I do not believe it to be a significant contributury factor in this case." I'm pleased you 'don't believe', but are you so sure that it didn't cause or exacerbate the blow-out? That it didn't provoke the veering off the runway by putting extra stress on the gear with its missing spacer? Can we even be convinced that the over-stressed gear didn't generate the ignition source?
And had he been underweight, how much more likely would the aircraft have been to reach a more sustainable speed, or establish a better rate of climb? What difference would it have made to the speed at which the pilot lost control?
And was the extra tonne (or five tonnes) all fuel? If so, did filling the tanks that tight make their failure more likely when subject to tyre impact?
I don't think it's ever acceptable to lose a human life. The death of even the least able, most cack-handed pilot will always be a tragic human loss. And I think Captain Marty was obviously a great character (he inspired great affection and loyalty in those who knew him, clearly), but as long as people aren't making highly personal attacks on him, or his engineer, or his co-pilot, then I think that on balance, it's just about acceptable to ask questions about the crew's actions and about human factors. I wouldn't like it if I was tyhe grieving widow, I'll admit, but nor would I like it if I were the widow of one of the passengers, and I knew that airline professionals were inhibited from trying to learn lessons by their reluctance to 'disturb' even the memory of one of their own - and that's how it could look.
Brave fellow, top bloke, obviously, but perhaps not without faults and failings - like every one of us. The question is, were those inevitable human frailties relevant this time? They do seem to have been a factor.