Crash Concorde 'almost killed Chirac'

[penash]

Crash Concorde 'almost killed Chirac'
A new book claims French president Jacques Chirac was almost killed in the Concorde crash in Paris in July 2000.

On that day, the burning Air France Concorde passed within about seven metres of an Air France Boeing 747 on which President Chirac was travelling and which had just landed.

The 747's proximity to the incident was not recorded in the official accident report into the crash which claimed 113 lives, according to the book Supersonic Secrets, written by broadcaster and journalist Rob Lewis.

Lewis wrote: "The French nation was left blissfully unaware of another key fact: how close they had come to losing their president.

"The final accident report diagram of the runway had been carefully drawn. While detailed, the choice of scale meant that Chirac's endangered 747 was just off the page - and did not have to be pictured.

"So how close had it been? According to those present on the day, the burning Concorde had come within seven metres of a deadly collision."

The book also made the following claims:

* There was a catalogue of operational and cockpit errors on the day of the fatal Concorde crash - July 25, 2000;

* The crew took off with an overweight plane;

* Because of this, the crew should have taken off into the wind but failed to do so;

* Even then, they might have been able to save the plane if they had operated the rudder fully and not turned one of the engines off so soon;

* The UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch felt it had been hampered by the French in its efforts to investigate the crash;

* British Airways attempted to keep Concorde flying for future generations through a new company - to be called the Concorde Alliance - but was prevented from doing so by manufacturers Airbus; and

* An Air France Concorde with 59 passengers and crew on board came within minutes of running out of fuel and crashing earlier this year - due to operational errors.

"As Concorde spare parts go on sale, it is fitting that the public get to discover the real facts as to why this supersonic marvel is being grounded," Mr Lewis said.

[Felix Lighter]

The scale of the map must be almost 1:1 then.....if an aicraft only 7m away wasnt depicted. Sounds like 1. a croc of sh1t or 2. an exaggeration to me

Ref you 4th *: - I note "..... they MIGHT have been able to control the plane....." - basically its a whole lot of speculation (again). Sadly the only folks that really know are DEAD.

RIP.

[MANTHRUST]

This was well covered months ago. If not on Prune then in the press!!
Move on

[paulo]

I've not found anything of substance - either on pprune or the web generally - regarding the incident at Halifax. As such that one does not appear to be "story closed", at least for outsiders.

Who would have has jurisdiction for that case? There's nothing in the NTSB database I can find.

[YouNeverStopLearning]

Concorde is being grounded because Air France are an unsafe, incompetent, GROSSLY inefficient and cash burning protected monopoly.
Retreaded tyres.
No cowcutter change to new design.
No tyre pressure monitors.

Brussels/Strasbourg ought to be investigating them as well as Rynoair [sic].
Airbus is in France and is dominated by the French...

[Flightmech]

This topic was covered on one of Sky's digital channels recently (Concorde-Anatomy of a Disaster or some similar title.) It alleged that the 747 with President Chirac onboard was at a holding point roughly at the Concordes rotation point. It also alleged the wheel failure was nothing to do with "that" piece of metal on the runway, but by a missing wheel spacer (later found in a maintenance hangar) that caused severe oscilations of the wheel on the take-off run which subsequently failed way before the location of the metal FOD. It also covered the overweight condition due to excess fuel and baggage.

Again, this is not my opinion, but just reporting what the programme covered!!

[Capt H Peacock]

Absolutely correct. The CVR transcripts show that the crew were well aware of the take-off weight before they even left the gate, and then as they lined up.

[Capt BK]

I saw the last half or so of that Sky programme. The points were well made so i'm undecided on my view of what happened but I seem to remember that someone on the 747 took a photo of concorde just before it passed in front and unless thay had a fish eye lens attached that aircraft was a lot more then 7m away.
I wouldn't be suprised if it did indeed come close to the 747 but I believe 7m would probably be an exageration.

I'm no crash investigator though so I may well be talking out my ar##

CBK

[ATC Watcher]

I did not know the French had black helicopters too.

It will be laughable if over a hundred people had not die.

Before making more comments I would urge anyone to first read the report of the crash , ( avail in English on the BEA web site ) check the evidence, especially on the overweight, read the CVR , and then come back here.

Conspiracies theories are very good paper sellers...

[paulo]

Watcher... unless you were personally on the investigation team (unlikely - the Brits weren't given the best of access)... I'm not so sure you know any more than anyone else on this one.

Questions...

(a) Was the spacer fitted or not? Was it significant?
(b) Why were the most immediate witnessess (3 x airport fire crew, watching the roll) observations discounted?
(c) Was the runway condition a factor?
(d) Given the above, esp. the witnesses, did the burst happen before or after the FOD strike?
(e) Probably unrelated, but what happened at Halifax?

I'm not a big one for conspiracy theories either, but at least some of these questions should have transparent answers from somewhere.

[ATC Watcher]

Paulo, no I was not a part or even involved in the Investigation team , (and BTW I am not a Brit either but I rather take that as compliment )
I just know some people around and know how to read an accident report ( part of my job).

The original post started with :
quote :
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crash Concorde 'almost killed Chirac'
A new book claims French president Jacques Chirac was almost killed in the Concorde crash in Paris in July 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With such a start allow me some doubts as to the rest of the claims in that book.

The ( minimal ) overweight take off is well documented in the report. It had no influence on the crash. Wind or no wind .We are talking a supersonic aircraft with re-heat , not about a 737.

The missing spacer conspiracy is another story which I personally do not believe ( but I can be proven wrong of course ) for the simple reason that : if that was true the BEA guys would not have been developping the metal strip issue in that lengh . The words " possible" or " probable " would have been used far more ofen in that part of the report.
Lastly Air France is suing Continental for the missing DC10 strip, so either they are fools , as something could come out at the trial , big risk for both AFR and the credibility of the BEA, or they know something you and I don’t .
I do not think AFR would bother suing COA if they were not sure of their facts.

[PorcoRosso]

JP Otelli wrote about the Chirac business 2 years ago ... What a breaking news !!

And the Concorde didn't miss Chirac's plane by 7 metres, but by 70 metres (Still close indeed )
As a matter of fact, one of the most famous (and tragic ) picture was taken by a japanese pax in the same plane.
If you accpet a factor 10 error (7 for 70 ) on this kind of fact, I guess you can accept the conspiracies theories as well.

Salut ATC !

[M.85]

Dear fellows,

I understand the interest in the Concorde crash.
However I think its of a BAD taste to speculate on dead highly professional and skilled pilots.
Wherever its their fault or not,I believe no one could ever say or imagine having dealt with the situation better than they did.
I am saddened about its retirement but every good thing has an end and if English wanted it to keep on flying,get to the drawing board and build a prototype like Airbus did for the Concorde.

Safe Flying,

M.85

considering Chirac near miss,believe me, he will soon enough join one of his jails...if french dont ever find anyone better to rule our country..

[Andy_S]

"Lastly Air France is suing Continental for the missing DC10 strip, so either they are fools , as something could come out at the trial , big risk for both AFR and the credibility of the BEA, or they know something you and I don’t ."

At risk of sounding like a tiresome xenophobe, don't the french aviation authorities have something of a reputation for pinning the blame on the most convenient foreigner first and establishing the facts later? If memory serves me well, the surviving british pilot of the turboprop that got hit on the runway at CDG a few years ago got arrested in his hospital bed by the french police for manslaughter just a few hours after the accident.

[Brit312]

M.85,
After every crash the crews actions are analized, that is why recorders are fitted to aircraft. As far as I can remember Airbus did not even exist when Concorde was being developed,and the drawings were drawn by both the French and the British. Only recently has Airbus become the design authority for Concorde and there are many in the UK regretting that that ever happened.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

M85 posted:
I am saddened about its retirement but every good thing has an end and if English wanted it to keep on flying,get to the drawing board and build a prototype like Airbus did for the Concorde.

M85, Airbus didn't exist when Concorde was being designed. The aeoplane was a joint venture between the British at Filton and the French at Toulouse; an equal partnership with at least 50 percent and probably more of the technologiacl developments coming from the Brits (intake door computers for one).

Quite why Airbus has ended up as the design authority I don't know, but the French are past masters at national self-interest (an admirable trait BTW that I wish our gutless Brit politicos had) so I can guess. Perhaps if it was still a joint Anglo/French responsibility, we could be looking forward to many more years of Conc operations.

SSD

[Wino]

British Airways could have made any future purchases of Airbus aircraft contingent upon support for concorde. In fact they should have. You have to be very uncomfortable with a manufacturer willing to pull support for one of their aircraft. They might do it again....

Cheers
Wino

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

At risk of soundiing like a tiresome xenophobe, don't the french aviation authorities have something of a reputation for pinning the blame on the most convenient foreigner first and establishing the facts later? If memory serves me well, the surviving british pilot of the turboprop that got hit on the runway at CDG a few years ago got arrested in his hospital bed by the french police for manslaughter just a few hours after the accident.

Too true! It was actually ATC at fault. Doubly-so for using French instead of English RT to their national aircraft so the British pilots didn't have a mental picture of the ground movements and so were unable to deduce that ATC had cocked up big time.

And what about the stitch-up following the crash of the TU144 at the Paris Air Show according to a TV documentary a few years back? Wasn't there rumoured to have been a French Mirage in the air at the same time, and the Russian pilot (who had been assured he had the airspace to himself for his display) had to manouvre sharply to avoid a mid air, and the aeroplane broke up trying to avoid hitting the ground in the recovery?

SSD

[BEagle]

ATCWatcher, you wrote:

"The ( minimal ) overweight take off is well documented in the report. It had no influence on the crash. Wind or no wind .We are talking a supersonic aircraft with re-heat , not about a 737."

You do understand the difference between RTOW and MTOW, don't you? The ac was substantially over RTOW, making it illegal even to let the brakes off at the beginning of the take-off roll. That is FACT.

Another 2 FACTS:

1. Rotation was initiated way below Vr, limiting the ac's ability to fly.

2. The FE deliberately cut off up to 25% of available thrust at a critical phase of flight by shutting down an engine still producing thrust - WITHOUT BEING ORDERED TO DO SO!

The Guardian article and John Hutchinson's expert analysis proved who caused the accident:

AIR FRANCE

[wbryce]

Supersonic Secrets, written by broadcaster and journalist


Amen!

[Squawk7777]

Too true! It was actually ATC at fault. Doubly-so for using French instead of English RT to their national aircraft so the British pilots didn't have a mental picture of the ground movements and so were unable to deduce that ATC had cocked up big time.

mental picture... gimme a break! Ever flown south of the rio grande all the way down to the tip of South America? Non-English ATC exists in many more countries than you think and the accident rate is surprisingly low! Two languages and one head! That seems difficult for some folks!

The solution is simple: Raise your situational awareness on the ground.

7 7 7 7

P.S.: Does anyone have the link to that accident report?

[ATC Watcher]

This is turning again into a racist anti French topic , where Journalists have more weight than Accident Investigators, contributing factors become primary causes and even Airbus becomes a French company.
We have read this in many other posts before. nothing new.

:(

7777 the report of CDG collision can be found en english on : www.bea-fr.org/anglaise/rapports/rap.htm type G-SSWN or Shorts 330 in the search box.

Beagle : on the 1 ton overweight talk to a CONC pilot and ask him what a ton over does to the Vzrc or read point 6.6 of the crash report especially the last line. ( same web site as above As I doubt you have read it in full.)

[BEagle]

ATCwatcher - I have indeed discussed the accident at length with very experienced Concorde pilots. They all agree that to show such total lack of concern over recomputing both RTOW and V1 given such a very significant wind change (of which they were well aware) was unforgiveable. As was the uncommanded engine shut down carried out by the FE. Surprisingly, the report glossed over these hugely significant and totally avoidable errors.

The relatives of the deceased merely need to have proof of the crew's total failure to operate the ac from brakes-off within the legal requirements of scheduled performance in order to bring a charge of corporate manslaughter on Air France, in my view.

1 tonne over MTOW is probably insignificant if the ac is below RTOW; however, I tonne above RTOW even if well below MTOW is illegal. Any ATPL holder know that....

[ftrplt]

Well said Beags.

While we are at it, ATC watcher said:

'The ( minimal ) overweight take off is well documented in the report. It had no influence on the crash. Wind or no wind .We are talking a supersonic aircraft with re-heat , not about a 737. '

Why does a supersonic aircraft with re-heat have less susceptibility to an overweight T/O than a 737???? Care to explain.

[M.85]

Just let them rest in peace.AMEN.


M.85

[BEagle]

Perhaps.

But NOT until a correct version of the real causes, and Air France's significant part in it, are published.

The one guy who DID sound warnings was the original Flight Dispatcher, who drew attention to the very high planned weight of the aircraft load.

[Rwy in Sight]

What is a RTOW and why is so important in the Concorde accident?

A question from a non-pilot


Rwy in Sight

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

RTOW stands for Regulated Take Off Weight. Basically, it's the max take off weight arrived at by reference to the performance manual, taking in all the ambient conditions for the runway in use. You're not permitted to release the brakes for takeoff at a weight higher than this. Obviously, if the max permissible structural takeoff weight was less, you'd be limited by that.

[BEagle]

Which means that it is absolutely essential to recheck the RTOW if wind, atmospheric pressure or outside air temperature are significantly different to those used for the original calculations. It is abundantly clear from the Concorde accident report that the AF crew were negligent in failing to do so........ One of the Commander's most basic duties was not carried out; one can only speculate as to why........

[ATC Watcher]

I do not know why I loose my time replying
Some of you obviously know better and have your minds made up so why bother making an Accident report hey ?
Last try then I’m gone from this post :

The weight .
All the calculated speeds and weights are in the report. .
The report mention structural MTOW and describe how RTOW ( BTW I thought it standed for Reference TOW not Regulated but never mind ) was calulated and indeed mention they were one ton over. I understand that Structural TOW was below RTOW so take off MTOW (185,0) is used and mentioned on the CVR by the Capt just prior take off.
Then the say : quote : " For all of these values, the influence of an increase in weight of one ton was examined and found to be negligible “ This is confirmed by my (ex) concorde friends.
That is enough for me .

FE swiching off #2 without been told so ; you obviously know about CRM and Emergency training at AFR right ?
CVR shows FO announcing #2 down, and then later fire alarm is on., then FE announces shutting down 2, the capt later ask to confirm #2 was shut down, FE replies : it is ,all this between V1 and Vr.
Looks very professional to me.

Lastly on the comparaison 737/Conc : . One ton over on a concorde at 185 t equals 300 Kgs over on a 737 at 63 t . with nearly twice the thrust per equivalent ton of metal available. That’s all.
.
If despite all this you still believe there is a conspiracy and that if they had been taking off with one ton less that they did , they would have survived this crash you are welcome.

M85 had the correct last word : leave them in peace.

[BEagle]

ATCwatcher, whilst RTOW was calculated for the original conditions, it was not recalculated for the actual tailwind condition passed to the crew. The difference WAS hugely significant; not to have recalculated RTOW shows either poor SOPs or that the Commander was taking an unacceptable risk. Those are very worrying postulations; either AF training was at fault or the Commander's risk management was fundamentally unsound. What other reason could there be for failing to carry out such a very basic duty?

You state: "CVR shows FO announcing #2 down, and then later fire alarm is on., then FE announces shutting down 2, the capt later ask to confirm #2 was shut down, FE replies : it is ,all this between V1 and Vr.
Looks very professional to me."

No, it was anything but. In response to the FO calling out the loss of thrust on #2, the call should have been "FULL POWER". Only when the ac was at a safe height and speed should the Commander have made a positive call of "Shut down #2 engine" Even then, the engine would not have been shut down without independent confirmation that the correct engine was being shut down.

I have taught and examined hundreds, if not thousands of single and double engine failures in 4-jet aircraft and have experienced several in-flight engine failures myself, including at MTOW and V1 in Bahrain. The drills must be instinctive, correct and employ sound CRM. None of which seems to have applied in the AF Concorde accident.

[Brit312]

BEagle,
Yes it all seems a bit rushed, but you have to remember that SOP change from airline to airline slightly, but I have to admit less so these days.
Concorde always took off at full power including Reheat, but it did have an emergency power setting called " Contingency Power " which increased each engines power by 5 % . Contingency power would be automatically selected at T/OFF power as long reheat selected and the CTY button pressed ( part of the T/OFF checks ) if an engine lost power. CTY power could also be manually selected by the F/E by making an additional selection on th Reheat switches.
Now in BA the calls would have gone something like

Engine Failure------F/E
Select CTY-----------Operating pilot
CTY selected--------F/E ( just to confirm what shoul have
Happened )
Cancel fire bell -----F/E but no call

all normal calls now until Gear selected up

Engine failure/ fire No** eng---F/E
Fire Drill No** eng----------------Operating pilot


Now whether that was A/F proceedure I don't know

Just to touch on another bit of this story it would not have made too much difference about the F/E shutting down the engine so early to the initial perfomance as when tyre comes adrift on Concorde, a large proportion of it is injested by at least the inboard engine on that side and sometimes by both engines on that side. Now the engines eat this debri quite well but until they spit it out the rear they do suffer a severe power loss, like about 50%. Although the engines are severly damaged by this debris, they normally recover to give almost full power, so this could have made a difference to the power available in the latter few secs of the flight.

Sorry it is so long Brit 312

[BEagle]

Thanks for correcting my terminology; what I was getting at was that "Give her all she's got" should have been called for. Whether that's 'Full Power', 'Contingency', 'All ahead together' or whatever!

Then, as you also state, everything normal until safely away from the ground and at a safe speed until the Op Plt ordered the relevant engine to be shut down.

Even if the #2 was only developing 50% thrust, 3.5 engines' worth of thrust might have made the critical difference which 3.0 engines' worth of thrust didn't!

[StudentInDebt]

Um, very interesting but highly academic surely.

Not much point having an extra donkey going when the wing is going to burn off anyway.

[BEagle]

I presume you're being facetious?

The aim is to FLY THE AIRCRAFT. If you can maintain control and accelerate to a safe speed you might be able to make an emergency landing even with severe fire damage. If you can't accelerate to a safe speed because some of your critical thrust has just been taken away from you without your ordering it, you will definitely die.

[gordonroxburgh]

The aircraft fell out of the sky after engine 1 failed following a massive surge.

Engine 2 was shut down, righly or wrongly depening on what AF ops manual you read.

But the surges on no2 were worst before it got shut down than on no 1, as the fire hot gasses were much closer to it. It would have been rendered pretty useless, in my view, even it it had not been shut down.

With the gear down and only 50-75% of the normal the thurst available you were coming doing pretty qucikly. (Vzrc for gear down on 3 engines was 205knts and >300knts for 2 engines) On disassembly the engines were found to contain parts of the airframe that were melting due to the fire. Parts of the flight control surfaces were also found along the path from the airport to the crash site.

No matter what the crew did that aircraft was coming down pretty quickly due to the engine surges/ingestion and the deterioration of the airframe.

Maybe it would have flown for a little longer, but would then have come down quicker. It was due the that way it came down that a lot of information was able to be recovered from the airframe.

What would have happend if they had made Le Bourget with only 2-3 engines, possibly no brakes on one side, a massive fire, with the systems damage that it was causing....I hate to think.

Yes there are issues, but not as big as people would like us to believe.

[DamienB]

What would have happend if they had made Le Bourget with only 2-3 engines, possibly no brakes on one side, a massive fire, with the systems damage that it was causing....I hate to think.

Sioux City showed that even the most violent crash on a runway can give you survivors.

Stalling and dropping out of the sky into a hotel, well, we know how many survivors that resulted in.

Can't remember which of the various reports I read it in contained it, but it mentioned that only 20-30 seconds of further controlled flight would have got them on the ground at Le Bourget, and any result of that would have been better than what they got.

[TwoTun]

Brit312 said:

<<Concorde always took off at full power including Reheat, but it did have an emergency power setting called " Contingency Power " which increased each engines power by 5 % . >>

True.

<<Contingency power would be automatically selected at T/OFF power as long reheat selected and the CTY button pressed ( part of the T/OFF checks ) if an engine lost power. >>

Not actually part of the take off checks, but I can see what you are saying.

<<Just to touch on another bit of this story it would not have made too much difference about the F/E shutting down the engine so early to the initial perfomance >>

Not quite. It made all the difference in the world. If they had kept the No 2 engine going, they would have had enough power to get safely airborne at the correct speed. With power from 3 engines, and at the correct speed, they would have made Le Brouget. By the crew shutting down the engine on rotation (which was below normal speed anyway), they made it certain that they would crash.

You then went on to say....

..an absolute load of crap about tyres being ingested into the engine...

No significant tyre debris was ingested into the engine. The tyre had blown well before the engines started playing up. There was some debris found in No 1 engine, but that was from runway edge lighting.

Read the report, Grasshopper, read the report.

:cool:

GordonRoxburgh;

The whole accident was a catalogue of human error, ignorance, and a cavalier attitude on the part of the operator.

It was avoidable, and the fact that Air France did not avoid it, and that the French authorities have seemingly turned a blind eye in the cause of National Pride is bordering on the criminal.

IMHO, of course.

:cool:

[Pigasus27]

Even if the #2 engine WAS only producing partial power ,this was surely better than turning it off? I was told that

1
Even a burning jet engine produces some thrust

and

2
In a desperate situation, every little bit of thrust helps.

[GlueBall]

At a height of only 200 feet (less than the height of the control tower) Captain Marty should have and could have put the airplane down into a farmer's field straight ahead instead of fighting to stay airborne on 2+ engines, with gear jammed in the down position with insufficient, decreasing airspeed!
He had received 4 desperate "Airspeed" calls from his First Officer. And the First Officer himself should have been much more assertive and reacted according to his own survival instinct and pushed the control column forward. A semi-controlled crash landing is always better than stalling, rolling sideways and falling out of the sky.

Captain Marty was driven by the lure of Le Bourget, its runway was clearly visible and less than 7 miles distant. Contributing to his lack of prompt critical airspeed response conceivably was due to the usual Simulator Training Mind-Set...where all inflight emergencies miraculously have always ended safely on a reachable pavement.

[Brit312]

two tun,
Now assuming that A/F had the flat tyre mod fitted, and it was mandatory, and that system was working, any flat tyre below 134 kts would have ben indicated to the crew and the T/OFF would have been abandoned. I believe the aircraft rotated early at about 185 kts so I assume the tyre was wrecked some where between 134 and 185 kts, which is not very big in the time scale of the event and an earlier tyre deflation not likely

If the aircraft had all 4 engines working an early rotation of that extent would have made it difficult to obtain correct flying speed in the total time of the flight, but yes it would have been more possible.

During the first 5 to 6 years of Concorde's operation BA and A/F had a lot of trouble with tyre burst during T/OFF [reason for flat tyre mod] and in the case of BA I do not remember one where the engine did not ingest the tyre. I have experienced three such incidents and in all cases ingestion took place, and the vibration whilst the tyre was being consumed was very bad, and the N2 dropped to 70 % before recovery. Now if the engine had a fire warning and the tower had said thare were large flames from the rear of the aircraft I too might have been tempted to shut the engine down.

Yes in the latter part of the flight controlability seemed to have been a problem and it is suggest that this was due to low airspeed, but just consider where the flames were and the proximity to the inboard powered flying control [ a point were all three hyds system came together], then if the flames melted the hyd pipes all three systems would be lost. On Concorde with no hyds the is NO control of the aircraft and it would pitch nose up and possibly with assymetric thrust turn over.

Yes I am sure that the A/F crew would if they could do things different if the situation repeated itself, but I am sure they adapted the SOPs to suit the situation they were in .No SOP no matter how well written fits every incident and sometimes they have to be modified.

In my opinion the crew could have done every thing correctly according to SOPs and the flight was still doomed once that fire started,and their only chance was to land straight ahead, but there they did not know that at the time and did the best they could

Regards Brit 312

[BEagle]

However, if they'd bothered to recompute RTOW and had subsequently refused to take-off with a wind condition putting them outside the legal requirements for a Passenger Transport aeroplane, perhaps the accident would never have happened?

They didn't - it did.

[TwoTun]

Brit312, you raise some interesting points.

However, it is a matter of fact that neither No 1 nor No 2 engine ingested any tyre material. The engine surges that they experienced were due to a disruption of the airflow caused by the hot gasses from the fire. No 2 engine subsequently recovered and was producing useful thrust when the crew shut it down at the point of rotation.

Regarding shutting down No 2 engine, in my 33 years of aviation (30 of them flying) no aircraft that I have flown, or airline that I have worked for, allows for the shutting down of an engine because of a fire warning between V1 and Vr.

It's just simply not done. In my experience, if you suffer an engine fire after V1 but before Vr, you always wait until you are climbing away at a safe speed, and the undercarriage has been selected up, BEFORE you shut down a failed engine.

regards

[NW1]

Glueball: If it became custom and practice to land in a "farmer's field" in a jet transport following a fire warning or similar engine failure / thrust loss on takeoff then many lives would be needlessly lost. There is a world of difference between 180 tonnes at 160kts+ and 1.5 Tonnes at 60kts-ish - that's why a PA28 demands a different approach to a B747. Capt. Marty did the best he could with what he had - the fire consumed the aircraft's ability to fly, and that is why the aircraft was lost. Landing in a "farmer's field" (or Le Bourget, or even an attempt at an RTO for that matter) would have made only a small detail change to the accident report.

BEagle: If they had not taken off the accident would not have happened. Well done. But take note: RTOW was not a factor in this accident, if they had been at RTOW minus 10 tonnes the fire would have been no less unforgiving, and the end result the same.

[BEagle]

You don't get the point. If they'd checked RTOW and, as a result had stuck to the legal requirements, they wouldn't have taken off and there wouldn't have been any fire.

It's the culture which led to their total failure to consider the change in RTOW which I cannot accept.

[NW1]

If you think RTOW had any part to play in that accident, then you don't get the point.

They could have waited 10 minutes, they could have used the reciprocal. A tyre failure of that exact pattern would have been just as disasterous, that day or any other. At any weight.

I fully agree that to turn a blind eye to limitations is unprofessional and unforgivable - but it did not cause this accident in this case. I am not saying that they were right to ignore a last minute change to RTOW (they were not) - just that this did not cause the accident and to place so much emphasis on this is to divert attention from the actual causes and the solutions.

[wellthis]

Boeing has a little line that says ...in the event of a failure after V1, there'll be no recall until 400 feet. Curious if AF had something like that, and why the crew deviated from it. I know it's easy afterward with time on our side to speculate, but something obviously went grossly wrong if all crew members were calling and doing different things and no one was running the show so to speak. Engine fire in itself over a short period of time is not that big a deal, plus if she's burning she's turning, might as well use the power until things are under control.

As for it missing a tall plastered-hair Frenchman, some one might say....too bad!

[Capt H Peacock]

Those who defend the operation of this aircraft above the maximum take off weight for the conditions should consider this.

Concorde, as a delta wing aircraft is unlike any other airliner with which we are familiar. Lift is provided by the generation of vortices, and the lift (and hence drag) generated is proportional to the angle of attack. If you need more lift, you need more angle of attack, and so you also need thrust to go with it.

A delta does not ‘stall’, you can have ninety degrees angle of attack if you like, as long as you have the thrust to go with it. At slow speeds, a high angle of attack is necessary, and so also a high thrust.

Hence Concorde has additional characteristic speeds called Vzrc and Vzrc3 (V zero rate of climb) which corresponds to an airspeed that you need to have to maintain level flight with four (three) power units operating at rated thrust. V2 for the aircraft is defined as 1.125 Vzrc. If you are below this speed for the number of power units specified, gravity takes over, and you WILL descend.

The accident report specifies that for a Concorde operating at maximum certificated weight (185t) Vzrc3 and Vzrc2 are 205kt and >300kts for flight with the gear down.

The flight crew were using Vr of 198 and a V2 of 220kts.

The aircraft was rotated at 188kt and left the ground at 201kt. The aircraft was below a speed to safely suffer a single engine failure.

The pilot continued to increase the pitch attitude and the speed reduced further. By the time engine 2 was shut down, the airspeed was 199kt. By the time control was lost the angle of attack had been increased to 25 degrees and the speed reduced to 136kt.

In a normal aircraft, speed is important, in Concorde it is vital. The aircraft was above its maximum weight, the take-off in a tail wind was a critical factor, and the aircraft was mishandled during a critical failure.

Those are the facts, they are taken straight form the BEA report.

[M.85]

Let them rest in PEACE!

IF IF and IFs are so easy..even the best of the best could never say that in these circumstances they would have reacted the correct way..
Please read their CVs..CRM is certainly the problem,human error..the left seat(as both are captains) had very little experience on the Concorde but once again please guys what happened happened and no one can bring the dead back.

As this thread becomes more and more,i feel,a judgement on the crews,this will be my last time here.It gives me the nausea.

As much as I have nothing against brits in general,maybe more against the few writing posts to put fire on gasoline.I would like to tell them the comment a french rugby analyst said about the difference between brits and french.
"French and English are arrogant,the only difference is that French know it"

Solong,

M.85

[BEagle]

The criticism is not so much aimed at the crew members themselves as their airline's culture which failed them when they needed to perform at their best.

[NW1]

Capt. P: I suspect you are mistaking an observation that RTOW did not cause this accident with an incorrectly inferred defence of the possible exceedance of RTOW. I suspect this because I have made the same observation before and been accused of supporting breach of RTOW - which I certainly do not.

The early rotation was made just before runway excursion, possibly to avoid just that. Proabably all that could be done, since runway excursion and inevitable retardation caused by undercarriage in the mud and/or collisions with off-runway objects would be definately conclusive, whereas an early rotation left a chance of survival, allbeit much reduced for the reasons you correctly point out. I would caution that the early rotation was not necessarily "mis-handling" for just that reason.

Combine the subsequent fire, consuming hydraulic systems and flying control systems, with engine failures and the end was, IMO, inevitable. I cannot explain the early uncommanded engine shut-down - that would not have happened in the Concorde operation I was a part of - but my opinion, from experience of operating the type, is that a) there was nothing which could have been done given the cards he was dealt on the day (raise the nose and die or lower the nose and die - some choice) b) the causes were properly addressed and the steps taken would ensure that that accident scenario would never occour again - and it was not an RTOW/PLTOW issue.

(PS: You say takeoff in a T/W was a critical factor, but analysis of the track & speed at liftoff showed the wind component to be zero, so it actually had no bearing on events: this does not, obviously, excuse ignoring the reported wind - just that it didn't affect the outcome....)

[John Farley]

NW1

With the aircraft drifting left for so long, do you have any feel for why full rudder was never applied to try and keep straight?

JF

[NW1]

John,

I don't know. The trace I have shows a sharp right rudder application, followed by modulating right rudder use. From experience I do know that too much nosewheel deflection can cause tramping and loss of NWS effectiveness depending on surfae conditions (probably not a factor on a dry r/w), but the rudder is a much more effective aerodynamic control on the ground above about 50kts than any other conventional type I have flown, but as to why full scale deflection wasn't used - I cannot guess.

I cannot think why full rudder would not be appropriate (the aeroplane had the distinct advantage of having virtually no yaw->roll couple).

[treadigraph]

I seem to recall reading a UK broadsheet "account" subsequent to the accident some time ago - perhaps Spring 2001 - which claimed that a "spacer" was missing from the port undercarriage assembly, causing the aircraft to progressively veer left, thereby impacting the DC-10 debris, etc, etc...

Anyone know for sure whether this was fact or fiction? The observations about overweight and wind mentioned above were also included in that account so far as I remember.

[runway23]

I have just registered to this forum after reading M.85's post, I have these comments.

God forbid that any of us ever have to cope with the circumstances that caused this accident. I don't think anyone on this forum is trying to hang this crew out to dry.

What we are hoping to do as pilots is to try and learn something out of this tragedy and it is entirely correct IMHO that professionals should be able to dabate this accident.

We all want to fly more safely and we all hope to learn by studing the circumstances surrounding any accident. I am sure that there are professionals that contribute to this forum that are involved in Crew Licencing and SOP reviews. If this kind of debate ultimately leads to safer flying, then we should embrace it.

[ou Trek dronkie]

Runway 23

Agree, no-one wants to besmirch the crew here, the accumulation of negative strikes that day left little hope for them, nor would anyone else have had much chance after brake release I reckon. The trouble is that once you start ignoring certain regulations, you can develop the infamous “I am exempt” mindset and are inclined to end up ignoring more and more rules and regs. Whether or not this attitude is common in one or more airlines could be debated elsewhere, but it won’t do anyone any good to witter on about it.

I stronglybelieve this type of discussion is greatly beneficial to us all and might just save a life or two one day, when a crew is faced with the sort of pre-take-off decision that Caption Marty‘s faced that day. Maybe they were in a situation where use of the other runway would have meant going back for more fuel ? Commercial pressure ? slots ? weather ? VIPs on board ? Plenty of us have been there …

[John Farley]

NW1

Thanks for that. I reckon most pilots try quite hard to keep straight so I am puzzled by how early the aircraft started to leave the centreline. If we accept he would have liked to have got back parallel (no need to get back to centre unless you are on a check ride etc) then it is interesting to think about what might have made him give up on that - by give up I mean use less than full control.

At the start of any take off run there is no handling involved other than keeping straight. Your type specific comments re steering are interesting and could be a reason for an initial reaction being on the tentative side. But talking generally, I feel that if you try and keep straight but find the aircraft response is not what you are used to (for whatever reason) then that is quite a distraction in itself while you mentally ask yourself ‘What is going on here?’ In my experience pilots don’t talk (intercom or R/T) about an unexpected handling problem until they have given up on trying to sort it out just because trying to deal with it uses up spare personal capacity in huge chunks.

I don’t know if any handling tests were carried out at Istres post accident re the effect of the missing spacer, but unless they were, one would have a nagging feeling that the effect could have been underestimated in the BEA report.

Having witnessed several crashes (too many actually but that is beside the point) I have more than once been left with a lasting feeling that the accident started with a trigger ‘event X’. After X there may have been (and usually were) several other things that also had to happen before the accident became inevitable, but with hindsight X was trigger. For me event X in this accident was not keeping straight before other things went wrong.

JF

[GlueBall]

NW1 said:..."If it became custom and practice to land in a "farmer's field" in a jet transport following a fire warning or similar engine failure / thrust loss on takeoff then many lives would be needlessly lost..."

Sir, this event was about insufficient, decreasing airspeed at 200 feet AGL...a scenario which required an immediate descent and landing to preclude imminent stall and uncontrolled crash. Captain Marty still had sufficient pitch and roll authority 1 minute after rotation to effect a controlled crash landing straight ahead unto one of several farmers' fields between CDG and LBG.

[PorcoRosso]

As for it missing a tall plastered-hair Frenchman, some one might say....too bad!


What about the crew and passengers who were also on board (probably some US citizens ) ? Collateral damage ?

[NW1]

John,

I understand your point of view. I don't know if he had given up on directional control, or if that had any part to play in subsequent event. I suspect not - in this case. I think that the result was inevitable given the massive and multiple system failures which the fuel leak and fire was causing. I don't believe the cause of the accident was directional control on takeoff.

[Final 3 Greens]

Sir, this event was about insufficient, decreasing airspeed at 200 feet AGL...a scenario which required an immediate descent and landing to preclude imminent stall and uncontrolled crash. Captain Marty still had sufficient pitch and roll authority 1 minute after rotation to effect a controlled crash landing straight ahead unto one of several farmers' fields between CDG and LBG.

Farmers field, in a burning, delta wing jet with u/c extended?

I'm not an airline pilot, but I suspect I'm rather more current on forced landings into farmers fields than many ATPLs - and I don't underestimate the risks involved in an aircraft that weights only 1.5 tonnes and approaches at only 90kts. I would certainly prefer a gear up configuration into a rough field or even into a field where standing crop made assessment of the surface impossible (this was mid summer.)

In a Concorde, this course of action sounds like committing suicide to me, rather than trying to avoid the inevitable, until the inevitable happened, which I would have thought would be the professional pilots response.

The deceleration forces as the u/c hit rough ground would be pretty extreme and given that the aircraft was well ablaze, the subsequent and inevitable rending open of the wings and spilling of the fuel would have caused conflagration, well away from the assistance of the AFS at Le Bourget.

I'm sure that Cpt Marty was well aware of the options and made the best call that he could under the circumstances. RIP.

[norodnik]

Academic as it may be, given the aircraft's demise, but did anyone go into the simulator and try and re-create the event.

This would not be to point fingers of course, but to try and learn if there was another way should it happen again ?

I realise that the relevant AIB's make recomendations and that reports, including solutions, are circulated but have not heard any discussion based on re-creation that could have resulted in conclusions other than the one sadly witnessed.

[atakacs]

Just wondering

What readings are (where) available to the FE to determine the actual state of engine #2 ?

Turning off an engine at this very critical moment is not a small decision (especially in an overweight Concorde) so you really need absolute hard evidence that this is the right course of action...

[BOAC]

Link to the accident report (http://www.bea-fr.org/docspa/2000/f-sc000725ae2/htm/f-sc000725ae2.html) which should answer some of the questions.

[atakacs]

Thanks for the pointer.

I have gone carefully through the report (again, fwiw) but I still fail to understand what readings are available to the FE.

Obviously there are various fire alarms indicators and some went off. Actually I'd say that there was little doubt about the fact that there was indeed a fire.

Now given the very timing of the event I would say that the FE was confronted with the question of the rifght course of action.

Typically, as others have mentioned, it is not common practice to shut down an engine at rotation... not even taking into account the very defavourable Concorde low speed flight caracteristics.

So unless ordered by the PIC (he was not) I'd say that the FE would not shut down an engine without having very hard evidence that this the right thing to do. Hence my quesion: what readings are available to the FE to assertain what's is really going on ?

(note that I believe that this flight was doomed no matter what)