AFR Concorde crash final report

[ATC Watcher]

The BEA has finished its final report of the AFR CONC that crashed on 25 July 2000, and wil present it officially to French Minister of transport next week. the causes of the crash is the same one as in the previous preliminary report : metallic piece from DC10 on runway causing explosing of tyre at high speed, pieces hit the botton of wing causing shock wave and perforation from the inside to the outside of the main fuel tank, then ingition of the fuel by an electric arc within the landing gear well.
They exonerate the crew, stating that : " even with the 4 engines oerating normally, the important dammages caused by the fire will have rapidely led to the crash of the aircraft "

The leaked conclusions and recommendations ( if they remain in their present form ) will shake a bit the confortable seats of some . Nearly everyone gets mentionned : Some of the text critisise AFR management ( 80 previous incidents on CONC involving tyres ) the AFR CONC maintenance department, as well as the US carrier ( whose DC10 lost the metal piece ) sub contarcted maintenance policy , the ADP runway cleaning schedule, etc..
One of the recommendation is for civil aircraft to be equipped with video cameras to monitor the non-visble parts of the aircraft from the cockpit.
( But it mentions earlier that even if they had known what happenned they probably would not have been able to save the aircraft).

From next week the French version should be on their web site, the English version soon after.

[A7E Driver]

Was there any mention of taking off over max gross? Or of the FE shutting down a little too quickly?

[BEagle]

From the French? What do you think.....

[tech...again]

I read on this site a while back that it may also have been out of trim to the aft owing to many last minute gate bags being loaded but allegedley not being shown on the loadsheet. Not sure if this was true...?

<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[wallabie]

Beagle Dear

The French wholeheartedly f...k you !!

[wallabie]

Static

The above items are mentioned in the report.
I had one of the investigation team members on the jump seat a few days ago and he confirmed me that regardless of the F/E's actions, the flight was doomed anyway. Structural damages were just too much.
As for the rest of the report........No comment !

[gordonroxburgh]

A little bit more info

It recommends that two separate audits be carried out on the "condition of running and maintenance of the Concorde by Air France," and on Continental Airlines' maintenance departments "in the United States as well as on its sub-contractors abroad,"

It Qualifies the Concorde's maintenance department at Air France as "a state within the state," the BEA urges the French Civil Aviation Authority to investigate the department, which appears to have enjoyed a "special status,"

In the final report, the BEA confirms a chronology of the tragic event it had already included in its mid-investigation report in July.

BEA investigators say the explosion of the Concorde's tire due to a piece of metal from the Continental Airlines flight caused the perforation of the fuel reservoir, which in turn caused the fuel to catch fire.

Earlier this year, BEA investigators publicly denied press reports that the crash of the Air France Concorde jet which killed 113 people had been caused by a missing part from the plane's undercarriage.

The BEA said it had been able to exclude the missing part's role in the crash by a series of tests, including examining traces on the runway at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and the state of the aircraft's tires.

Tthe BEA also urges the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) -- the US counterpart to the French civil aviation authority -- to audit Continental Airlines, warning that the trend to farm out aircraft maintainance as a money-saving measure could be damaging to overall security.

The Continental Airlines flight that took off before the Concorde had undergone irregular maintenance in Israel and in Houston, Texas, the investigators say in the report.

The report also issues a series of recommendations for airlines across the world, calling for a better runway surveillance, an improved follow-up on air-worthiness "to quickly define corrective actions," as well as the strengthening of regulations concerning tires, fuel reservoirs and fuel inflammability.

The report also clears the crew of any blame, as the structural damage was so great their chances of saving the aircraft were very low.

Investigators also urge aviation authorities to equip planes with a video-surveillance system to allow the pilot and the crew to see parts of the plane normally hidden from their view.

[speed check]

Having flown a camera fitted a/c apart from a nice veiw, flight deck drills do not allow time to have an in depth conversation about what the picture is showing you. At night the situation is worse you only see the rotating beacon. Nice sunsets though! <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0"> <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0"> <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

[Streamline]

All this makes the documentary made by Panorama (BBC) even more interesting.

[DownIn3Green]

Ask the "Guv". He knows it all...

[The Guvnor]

No mention, I suppose, of the ADs and SBs that BA implemented on their aircraft specifically to contain tyrebursts - and which AF didn't?

[BEagle]

...and how about a staement giving the MTOW, ATOW and RTOW on that fateful day - or the culture behind the decision when knowingly facing a take-off close to, if not beyond the limit, just to go for it &lt;&lt;Top!...&gt;&gt; without bothering to recompute the performance figures, or the culture which allows a FE to shut down an engine still producing thrust without the shutdown being commanded.....

I hope that the BBC do an analytical follow-up on this report without the emotional bull$hit spouted by the French pilot in the last documentary &lt;&lt;Captain 'utchinson - 'ee iz in lerve wiz zees airplan'&gt;&gt;. It is not that hard to get hold of a Concorde ODM, the weather for the day and the transcript of the CVR and to replicate the take-off performance calculations in the cold light of day. I still believe that the Commander started his take-off roll well knowing that the aircraft was overweight for the conditions....we need to know WHY he chose to do so!!

[ 30 December 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]</p>

[The Guvnor]

Out of interest, has anyone replicated this flight in the Concorde sim? If so, what were the results?

[Reheat On]

Pasque, mon cher Beags, weeth ze lerng rernway, and , 'ow you say, shedloads of threrst, ze Gallic hero can be assured ov ze OK outcome. Ah mean, when did ze aircraft last 'ave ze fire on take off? It never 'appen, n'est pas?

Eh voila - la culture casualle

Zere are ze old pilots and ze bold pilots.

Plus ca change, mais rien de change. :-(

[BEagle]

&lt;&lt; Tiens, merde alors - ah can sail ma' surfboard across ze ocean Atlantique, zen ah can do zees! Allons-y....top!! &gt;&gt;

I just want to know that this was NOT the sort of mindset which was responsible for risking the passenger's lives from the moment take-off thrust was selected...........

[ 31 December 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]</p>

[The Guvnor]

BEagle - given the comments by our friend wallabie - what do you think? <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[Frangible]

I can hardly believe what I've read here. These columns are filled with moans, groans, flamings and fumings about the media getting things wrong, especially when they speculate, and then you guys go and dance on the graves of the Concorde crew -- in probably the grossest display of insensitivity I have ever seen on this forum -- because of a half-baked theory. Captain Hutchinson IS in love with Concorde. On Panorama he called it "the aircraft I love".

And while we are in mote-and-beam mode, let us not forget that Hutchinson was a junior officer on the BOAC 707 which lost an engine over Heathrow in 1968, and returned, landing successfully. I recall hearing him on Radio 5 on the day of the Concorde crash saying that losing one engine was not necessarily any big deal, because it had happened to him. Hmmm. What actually happened was that the flight crew (of which Hutchinson probably the most junior member, true) failed to shut off the fuel to the burning engine, which then fell off. Five men in the cockpit and not one thought to pull the fire-handle on the affected engine. Even after landing fuel was pouring into the hole on the wing, turning a manageable crisis into an inferno and costing five lives. Read the AAIB report if you don't believe me. Panorama glossed over this embarrassing incident by saying the BOAC pilots "saved 121 lives" without mentioning the five dead or 38 seriously injured. Nor did they find the space to say the flight crew was criticised in the AAIB report.

On the day after the Concorde crash Hutchinson was quoted in the press saying, "It is, in my view the safest aeroplane that is flying in the skies today." Even if you don't see this statement as faintly ridiculous, how could he possibly know this on the very day of the crash? I think he was following his heart, not his head, and has been doing so ever since.

All that stuff about being over MTOW, changing wind speeds, the spacer, etc. is pure speculation. The BEA proved their independence by slagging off various parts of AF management and maintenance in the final report. When the magistrate gets going he will indict various people in AF and probably charge a few of them.

The French are not above a bit of patriotism-induced blindness, but if BEA thought the crew had done the wrong thing they would have said so. The chauvinists in this case are the ostriches who insist this could only have happened to a French Concorde. Concorde tyres -- British and French -- have blown up and made holes in fuel tanks on six or seven other occasions. The difference was that this time, the leak ignited. It could have happened to anyone.

The crash made the French fall out of love with Concorde and start to look on it as just another aircraft. It is high time the British did the same.

[wallabie]

Guv

I think you may just be the type who would most probably enjoy this kind of medecine. It would make you feel the difference between your a.s and your head for one thing and I say this would be quite a discovery to you.
May your wandering brain find its way to your skull.
And by the way, yes the accident was reenacted on the sim and they went down ! I'll grant you that the fact they did had undoubtly to do with the fact they were french pilots.
Guv, do me a favour and let's keep it secret from the travelling public that the 4000 pilots flying for Air France are..........well, french. What an embarrassment it would be if this went public. Counting on you mate !!
We did actually look for your patronizing farting self, but couldn't find you and we decided we'd have to do without your fine expertise. Happy New Year !


Deacon, you are spot on and I don't know wether the investigating magistrate will choose to indicte a few AF managers or not on the basis of the report. We'll see, but I'd be surprised if the victim's families let it rest although there has been a settlement. It all depends on the magistrate and how indenpendant he'll prove to be.

[gordonroxburgh]

I think we should save all our judgements now until the report officially gets published.

My only point to note is that the French still are very much in love with Concorde: In fact bigger crowds turn out to see her fly at French airports that you would ever see at LHR.

[BEagle]

Sorry, Deacon Brodie, but the 'theory about being over MTOW, changing windspeeds, etc' is easily recoverable data. You do understand the significance of RTOW, ATOW and MTOW, don't you....

I still haven't seen any clear statements of:

1. ATOW
2. RTOW calculated by the crew.
3. The real RTOW with the substantial tailwind.

....or any evidence to indicate that anyone on the crew had even reviewed the t/o performance calculations when faced with the actual conditions.

It's not individuals who I'm criticising, it's the culture that seemed to exist on the doomed flight deck.

[ 31 December 2001: Message edited by: BEagle - sorry for getting your nom de PPRuNe wrong]

[ 31 December 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]</p>

[The Guvnor]

Deacon Brodie - the point that I made about the previous tyrebursts was that the CAA issued SBs and later an AD to correct the problem.

The French - or more correctly, Air France - chose to ignore it on 'economic grounds'.

Had they complied with it, then this incident would not have happened. It's as simple as that.

[acm]

Guv,
The CAA ADs and SBs that BA apply and not AF concern the water deflector, not the tyre. The water deflector was not involved in the July 2000 accident.

[shortfinals]

The CAA has effectively withdrawn the requirement for reinforced water deflectors. In fact it was a condition of Concorde's re-certification that the steel wire reinforcement was removed because it is considered more likely to cause damage than to prevent it.

And all those who still think Brits can do no wrong and the French cannot be trusted, bear in mind that the AAIB was invited to be an observer to the BEA's investigation - an invitation that it wholeheartedly accepted - and that the Concorde Working Group that convened monthly to review the investigation and decide what the recertification mods should be was bi-national (that means, for the linguistically challenged, that both Brits and Frogs took part in it).

As for ATOW/MTOW/RTOW, yes I want the answers too, but I want to see what the report has to say about them before I judge.