Originally Posted by jcjeant
Fire before or after metal part collision ?
If, as you say, you've read the full BEA report, you should have seen, that the start of the soot marks on the runway (from the 'fuel-rich' fire), start at about the same location as the metal strip, the tyre fragments, and the metal part from the wing tank were found.
Postulating a wheel or brake fire (by itself an exceedingly rare occurrence) only a few
seconds before the aircraft runs over a metal strip, ripping the tyre apart and starting a big fuel leak, is really pushing coincidence too far.
Such an improbable scenario could only have been invented by lawyers clutching at straws.
The unreliability of eyewitness report has already been discussed in earlier posts.
CJ