Mountain Bear
Yes, but under American law the standard would be whether or not that consequences was foreseeable. This is what I mentioned in my very first comment on the topic.
The accident happened in France. French law is applicable. Several posters have gone to great lengths to explain this in detail. If the accident had happened on Mars, Martian law would be applicable.
US law is not applicable to this accident, and opinions based on US law are not helpful.
This is why PBL's example with a gun is not useful. Playing with a loaded gun it is foreseeable that someone could get hurt. I don't believe that is true with a mechanic bungling a repair on an airplane.
Nonsense. Bungling a repair on an aeroplane causes that aeroplane to be released to service with a known fault that is logged as repaired - i.e. in a state that differs from its documented state. There are myriad unknown possibilities consequent upon a bungled repair.
That is why repairs must not be bungled in the first place.
It's also important to note that under American law what is foreseeable is not what is foreseeable to the expert or even to another mechanic or what his license says. The standard is what is foreseeable to the "average man".
Then training, licensing, experience and standards count for nothing? Forgive me for using the UK term "cobblers". The repairer was not an average man - he was a licensed mechanic. Part of the training involved in gaining that license involves being instructed that bungled repairs are likely to have unexpected consequences.
If US law assumes that the standards of the "average man" are to be applied to a trained specialist,
in his specialist field, then we have a prime example of the law as an ass.
Applying that standard, what is foreseeable to the average man, I find it a simple fantasy that this mechanic could foresee that this incorrect repair was going to blow up the Concorde. I don't believe it.
There is no need to. It is only necessary to believe that the mechanic knew that he had bungled the repair, and that in so doing he had invited the possibility of unexpected consequences.
One for example might have been a thrust reverser malfunction caused by the missing wear strip, just at the point at which the DC10 required maximum reverse performance in order to avoid careering off the end of a runway into a ravine. Bangalore, say.
Edit: that should be Mangalore, obviously. And, not being a licensed mechanic, I have no idea whether the bungled repair might have caused a reverser malfunction. But the wear strip was specified for a reason, and there must be consequences arising from its absence. I think I make my point.
That the dropped strip would knock down Concorde was not directly foreseeable is irrelevant. That the repair was not performed according to SOPs and was therefore liklely to have an unknown performance was directly foreseeable.
I'm not an aviation professional. I'm a freelance. I am directly responsible for everything I do. I can't run off to mummy employer to take the rap if I foul up.
I like it that way. It is bracing, and concentrates the mind. Try it sometime.