Originally Posted by
Lyman
Any alternate theory involves countering accepted (though perhaps questionable) conclusions.
Certainly!
Let's not extend that to the point of countering
established facts, will we please? Because if facts don't matter, then we're not being serious about aviation safety, we're being serious about personnal beliefs.
Let's try, once again:
Questionable conclusions from the BEA report:
A1- the titanium strip was the only & direct root cause for the sequence of events that led to the crash;
A2- the missing spacer had no influence to the crash;
A3- the too early #2 engine shut-down had no influence;
A4- the too early rotation (as per references speeds) had no influence to the crash;
A5- the overweight had no influence to the crash;
A6- the rearwind had no influence to the crash;
All those conclusions are indeed questionable, and may be seen as aimed to protect AF from liability, indeed (at last: they had this effect).
Questionable conclusions from third parties:
B1a- the titanium strip had no influence to the crash;
(or)
B1b- the titanium strip cannot be seen as the only root cause of the crash;
B2- the missing spacer had an influence, and was a causal factor of the crash;
B3- the too early #2 engine shut-down had a direct influence to the crash;
B4- the fuel tanks were overfilled and that had an influence to the crash;
Those are questionable because they contradict the report (hence they must be fact-checked), and because they may be seen as aimed to protect a third party (namely: Continental) from liability.
Now, all those have already been discussed numerous times.
Allow me to make a
résumé (in french in the text ) of my point, without being going to far sidetracked into other (interesting nonetheless) discussions.
Scenario:- B1a is rejected: All evidences show indeed that the #2 tyre blow up when rolling on the strip. BEA, AAIB, judicial and every informed/serious third party analysists are OK with that established fact.
- As a first consequence, a major fuel leak occured. B4 is rejected because the overfilling of the tanks (as per procedures) concerned the tanks 1, 2, 3 and 4, but not the tank 5 which suffered the leak. This tank was not overfilled, it was filled.
- As a second consequence, a fire started (because of an electric arc or because of reheat: there is a disagreement on the cause). Let's stick to the established fact that the fire was present, as BEA, AAIB, judicial and every informed/serious third party analysists are OK with that (not counting anyone able to look at a picture).
- The extent of the fire had in turn two main consequences:
- Loss of thrust on engines 1 & 2. It is unclear if the #2 would have produced any significant thrust if it had not been shut down too early, but B3 cannot be ruled out with certainty: Perhaps the #2 engine would have been able to generate useful thrust.
- Significant damages to the left wing and left control surfaces of the aircraft. Those damages were increasing with the time. They was no way to stop them from increasing, unless being able to extinct the fire (which was not possible).
- Those damages ultimately led - in conjonction with the too low thrust - to the loss of control of the aircraft and to its crash.
Analysis:
Now, my point is that even with the hypothesis of enough thrust being available (i.e. #2 engine not shut down
and physically able to produce significant thrust despite the fire, which is far from certain and certainly not an established fact), the thing is the fire damages to the aircraft itself would have been "enough" to make the aircraft uncontrollable => loss of control => crash.
What would maybe have changed is the exact time (hence location) of the LOC, therefore the plane would have crashed elsewhere than at "La Patte d'Oie" of Gonesse. But il would have crashed anyway.
In this way,
A2,
B2,
A5,
A6 are irrelevant, whatever their reality or their importance about what they show about AF (non)adherence to procedures.
And if we were to stretch things a bit more? What if the plane had been able to reach & land - not crash, land - at Le Bourget, that was not so far away? Then I think there would have been (massive/total) casualties anyway because of weight, speed, some brake power lost (damages to the U/C), and fire engulfing the plane when it would have stopped.
Hence I don't think it would have been able to "make it" in any way once it had rolled on the strip.
A1 surely is a bit of a stretch, and aimed to protect AF, but it seems the court finally saw better and didn't forget to blame AF too. That's good.
A1 is wrong.
B1b is most certainly true: the inherent fragility of Concorde to blown tyres/fuel/electrics interactions was known since a long time.
With hindsight, it is now an established fact that the corrective actions that were undertaken since '79 were too feeble to protect the aircraft from that risk.
Conclusion, part 1: All parties involved in the operation and certification of Concorde
(in France and UK at last, and perhaps we should add the NTSB/FAA too because of the location of Washington) can be seen as sharing (to some degree it is) the responsibility of letting Concorde fly to its fateful fate in July 2000. I'm not a lawyer, I won't try to assess the sharing of that global responsability, except to say - before being crucified - than I agree that the share/responsability of AF seems greater than the share/responsability of BA.
Conclusion, part 2: As I wrote earlier that, if a BA aircraft had rolled on the strip, it would also crashed too
(even with the equation better operated=able to stay airborne longer, there is no equivalent to Le Bourget near Heathrow, I believe?).