Originally Posted by
philip2412
pls allowe me one question,would the concorde have hit the strip if the spacer had been in place ?
All other things being the same, yes it would have.
From what I've read regarding accident investigation, if physical evidence and eyewitness evidence diverge, then it is standard procedure to consider the physical evidence as more reliable, as eyewitness evidence has been proven to be one of the less reliable sources - dependent as it is on human perception and psychology.
The missing spacer is unlikely to have altered trajectory prior to contact with the metal strip, it would simply have had a very marginal effect on acceleration (and possibly a barely-perceptible level of vibration) given the sheer amount of thrust-to-weight involved.
At the risk of re-stating the obvious, no amount of errors on AF's part (of which there were undoubtedly several) would be sufficient to negate the errors made by CO. Mistakes made by both organisations must be combined and considered as a whole (and indeed the BEA report always reflected this).