In the context of this particular thread (responsability, verdicts, etc.), there's still one thing I personally keep scratching my head about....
Who blew the tyre, that caused the fuel leak?
Continental's incompetence - not arguing that at the moment.
But.... who lit the fire? In the sense of "who was responsible?".
Had the fuel leak not caught fire, we would have had a very messy repeat of Dulles 1979, but no crash.
As the BEA report states, the "most probable cause" is arcing of wiring of the 115V brake fan supply in the wheel well.
"Blow-back" from the n°2 engine surge, or "flashback" from the reheat are mentioned as other, possible but less likely, ignition sources (once the fire caught hold, it would obviously be 'sustained' by the wheel well, regardless of the original cause).
Did the tyre burst scatter enough debris to also damage the wheel well wiring, in which case we're back to the starting point... no tyre burst, no leak AND no fire?
Or was there a 'pre-existing condition', not present in any of the previous incidents?
If so, who was responsible?
Any evidence obviously got lost in the resulting fire and the crash.
Apologies to all you reading this.... just mulling it right here.
- The tyre burst and fuel leak didn't cause the crash, as such.
- The subsequent fire did.
If the two are directly linked, there's no further argument. I just wanted to throw this into the 'arena'....
The subsequent actions by Airbus included shielding the landing gear wiring, and turning off the brake fans during take-off, but those were only actions "post quem" as in blocking one of the possible 'swiss cheese holes', so they don't really tell us anything.
CJ