If you reread my post #168 you will see I said if a fiddle had been found (which ameliorated the aircrafts well known range/payload deficiency) "well, you tell me".
Given this particular crews willingness to use other "fiddles" on the accident flight
1 - overestimating taxi fuel & not correcting afterwards
2 - Ignoring the tailwind which meant they were now overweight
3 - possibly missing a few last minute bags in the weight & balance calculation
it strikes me that they needed all the fuel they could get onboard, so would you be greatly surprised that another "fiddle" which seems to have been known about (and not needed I would propose on the slightly shorter flights of BA from LHR) could indeed have been used on this occasion.
I don't have any evidence it was, but given the crews slightly lax attitude to accuracy in other aspects of planning & execution, why not ?
Courtesy of the fact BA had lighter cabin fittings and a few less track miles to go to JFK I believe they didn't have this problem, but I know the AF operation Westbound didn't have a lot in hand with a good load.
I agree, the foundation for this tragedy should have been recognised and corrected in 1979, it wasn't, and it lurked in the background waiting for this unfortunate combination of circumstances to line up the final hole.
If the court find that the principal cause of this accident had anything to do with Continental, it will stink of whitewash.
What about the witnesses (pompiers @ CDG) who claimed to have seen sparks or flames well before the supposed position of the titanium strip, where was their evidence in your pet report ?
Furthermore if the gear bogey problem was judged by the BEA to be fairly inconsequencial why did they manage to lose directional control.
The report may be factual, up to a point, but it sure fails to emphasise the importance of things that would have been embarassing to AF ( the performance irregularities, the maintenance irregularities, the poor crm demonstrated by the crew in prematurely shutting down a live engine during the take-off)
Whether the court will look at these aspects, or just try to blame , 30 yrs later, the "soft targets", and a corporation on the wrong side of the Atlantic we will see.
If they do it will be as laughable as trying to blame an accident caused primarily by lack of situational awareness, on a little A/T defect, coincidentally also the fault of a corporation on the other side of the pond.
No wonder the Yanks must wonder how we can fit our heads so far up our own @rses.