Action against Concorde official
 

BBC Radio Five just announced that action is to be taken against an official for the Concorde 2000 event

??????? :confused:

The only link I can find to this story is from Pravda:

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/09/27/63790.html

Personally I think that they're barking up the wrong tree and should look much more closely at Air France's operation of the aeroplane.

RTOW vs. ATOW on the day? Maintenance? CRM?

Agree with Beags re this accident, but there is also the fact that tyre failure led to fuel tank rupture, which could be considered a basic design defect.

SSD

The official in question is, I understand, Henri Perrier, who was fairly senior in the Concorde programme. Quite what this will achieve is beyond me.

It's up on the Beeb now...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4285832.stm

Seems a bit of a pointless excercise now...

Nige

A significant number of accidents have been preceded by incidents which point to a future problem; a BA Concorde suffered similar damage in an earlier incident, take-off rejected below V1, and a happy ending.

The tragedy is that the expensive modifications were not required to be done until there were enough bodies at the end of the runway.

TP

From Sky News:-
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...445692,00.html
A manslaughter case has been opened against the former head of the Concorde programme over the fatal crash near Paris in 2000.

I was going to comment on this in another place, under another alias, but decided that the possible reasons for why this charge has been brought now and whether the outcome has already been decided, were just too 'French' for me.

The French Authorities and Legal System are sometimes in opposition but often appear to be 'in bed' together, especially when it is felt a scapegoat is required, or at least appearances must be maintained.

Whoops my cynicism is showing!.
DIH

Oppsy...

You're cynicism is really showing... you're probably right BTW.

After all Air France and the Paris airports could not be blamed for it.. those damn Americans with their shoddy maintenace and an aircraft that was knowningly dangerous certified by two independent national operators and operated by two national carriers was the real cause....nothing to do with us guv...

Concord
 

What about the spacer on the underrcariage that the Air France engineers failed to correct.

Missing spacer.... well it wasn't really a problem....its effect was marginal.. that's why it was there in the first place....

Well something was going very wrong for a very long time.

And what was (really) done about it? Below from Air France Accident Report.
------------------

Research was undertaken to find incidents which had involved tyres or landing gear on the Concorde since its entry into service. The information collected to establish the list of events came from the archives of EADS, Air France, British Airways, BEA, AAIB, DGAC, CAA and Dunlop.

The list in the appendix shows information from events coming from at least two different sources or for which reports or detailed information exist.

In the list, there are fifty-seven cases of tyre bursts/deflations, thirty for the Air France fleet and twenty-seven for British Airways :

Twelve of these events had structural consequences on the wings and/or the tanks, of which six led to penetration of the tanks.

Nineteen of the tyre bursts/deflations were caused by foreign objects.

Twenty-two events occurred during takeoff.

Only one case of tank penetration by a piece of tyre was noted.

None of the events showed any rupture of a tank or a fire, whether leading or not to a significant simultaneous loss of power on two engines.