PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Concorde crash: Continental Airlines cleared by France court
Old 23rd Dec 2012, 10:13
  #308 (permalink)  
AlphaZuluRomeo
 
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jcjeant,

We have established facts, here.

1/ The BEA wrote a confidential memo.

2/ Lessons from '79 did not prevent Gonesse.

You're linking those two facts into a theory that makes you (almost?) accusing people back in '79 to have said: "let it crash, it doesn't matter".
Really?
Can't you imagine other theories? Or do you choose not to mention them because they do not correspond to a certain (preconceived?) idea you might have?


Let's try again, shall we?

1/ The BEA wrote a confidential memo.
Yes. Question is: why?
  • Perhaps at the time it was written, it was simply a work document, classified as confidential "by default" as is usual in most organizations: Only approved communications are made public. And before that, documents relative to an on-going inquiry are not meant to be public. Do we have the date of that memo? Clive answered the question while I was writing this. We now have an answer]
  • « O tempora, o mores ». This was 1979, 30+ years ago. The cold war. No Internet, no Web (ARPANET was just live, for US military only). Far less transparency then than now exists.
  • And there was political pressure about Concorde at the time: Let's not forget that flight restrictions in NY / USA were just lifted (IIRC) after a long and painful "battle". Bad publicity would have jeopardized the future operation of the aircraft (which had only recently entered service), giving "ammunition" to his opponents.


2/ Lessons from '79 did not prevent Gonesse.
Indeed. But this undeniable fact has too often been distorted into "nothing was done" or something like that. This distortion is wrong: Fixes were implemented after Washington'79 and other tyres events, before the 2000 crash, and this was already stated numerous times in this very thread (among others).
Those fixes were aimed at correcting/solving the issue with the tyres. They didn't succeed (enough). But we can only say that with hindsight.

Washington'79 and Gonesse were different events regarding the importance of the fuel leak (hence the importance and destroying capabilities of the consecutive fire). And the difference is not a little one, see my #59.

Conclusion:
I have no difficulty imagining the political leaders of the time (IIRC the issue had risen to the presidency) decide to remain discreet and try to control the information made ​​public.
With our current mindset, we can find it "weird" or even suspect. But when we remember the time and conditions ... it does not seem so suspect anymore, IMO. Even if we wouldn't accept such things anymore: the world has changed!

But the fact that discretion was required does not automatically means that the people advocating for that discretion were refusing to fix the issue at hand.

I cannot imagine, OTOH, that people (from BEA, DGAC, AF, French gov...) were convinced that there still was a great risk of accident after the fixes were implemented. I cannot imagine they have deliberately limited the range of the fixes, that would have meant they didn't care if a Concorde took fire and crashed later.
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