"Also, how much do you feel shutting down a perfectly operating engine contributed to the crash?"

As I understand it damage to wiring caused a warning on the No 2 engine which was then correctly shut down iaw drills. The engine itself was OK but the crew were not to know that. Indeed, I would not entertain any criticism of the crew in this case - they did everything that could be expected of them in a situation that was irrecoverable. Concorde was designed to climb at 4% gradient (safer than the subsonic ordinary plane's 3.2%) with one engine out, u/c retracted. The accident aircraft had one engine shut down, another giving less than full power for a time, an u/c that was not fully retracted and a plume of flame at the back which produced extra drag. (I don't want to start a hare running here but the plume causes afterbody drag - the air sees it a part of the aeroplane.) Under these circumstances there was no way it was going to climb.

Concorde probably was more vulnerable than other aircraft to tyre damage, but not by much. I know other manufacturers are looking carefully at the hazards which might arise on their aircraft in similar circumstances. Hopefully we can all learn from this disaster. It would be an insult to a fine professional crew and all those pax if we did not.

Northwing - Well said Sir
 

Hmmm, after the jackals of the legal profession and media have finished with this carcass, it would be nice to think that we, as an industry actually learn something from it.

I have a problem with 'fitting tributes to . . .' because I think it's a sentiment full of excrement. It suits as as humans to fudge our feelings to make ourselves feel better, it has little to do with the personalities concerned.

What I DO believe is that certain incidents (not only in our industry) act as turnkeys to improving safety - Herald of Free Enterprise, the ferry for example.

That said, we've not learned much about furnishings aboard since the Manchester 737 have we? How long ago was that?

We still carry bottles and bottles of Molotov Cocktails (Duty Free to the uninitiated) too, instead of ground based DF lounge on arrival like some airports now have.

I believe the crew probably did the best they could given the circumstances they were presented with. I also believe that they were in a worst case scenario and a no-win situation.

I have an enormous amount of sympathy for the nearest and dearest of all aboard, because you NEVER go off to work not expecting to come back (unless you're a terrorist I suppose), and the family accept that your job takes you away - there is no belief (only a silent fear) that it is permanent.

Can you imagine what is going through the minds of the Continental crew - the 'if onlys'?

I pray that this accident too, allows work to be done to make EVERYBODY safer.

Its fair to say there still some very important unanswered questions:

According to a seperate investigation carried out by those who clearly felt the facts as given by the French Authorities didnt stack up; one being an ex AF Concorde Flight Engineer

Namely:

1. Why was a report by a CDG fire crew by the side of the runway stated that they saw Concorde on fire well short of where the strip of metal was found dismissed by investigators?

2. Apparantely due to Concordes TOW it requested full length and an area of the runway rarely used and as a result in particularly poor condition. While these suspicious chaps were looking into this rough area being a cause for the tyre to burst.
CDG had subsequetly resurfaced it. Evidence gone!

3. Evidence from the runway seemed to suggest Concorde had left the centre line, again before reaching the strip of metal. Bearing out the point above.

4. Concorde was veering toward the AF 747 on the taxiway and as a result got airbourne well short of Vr. According to the transcript the FE seemed to shut down the engine which was still producing thrust without a call from the Captain. This these investigators agreed sealed Concordes fate.

5. The programme ended by saying the assisting British investigators never actually got to see the strip of metal and the full CVR tape. Why?

Funny enough only seen this programme aired once. But it seemed convincing.

Bits fall off aeroplanes all the time. Just a couple of days ago a large bit fell off a departing Cathay and did nasty things to Khun <somebody's> pickup parked not a million miles from BKK.

To be fair, Cathay are paying for his new windscreen and undenting his roof and god bless 'em..

The point is (as someone said earlier) Sh*t happens.

If M le Grenoble reckons he's got a chance of pinning the Air France Concorde tragedy on Continental then good luck to him. Just so long as Continental are not required to contribute to the legal costs on what has to be a complete waste of time and very bad public relations.

It's so stupid. If I run over a nail on the road and puncture a tyre, I don't go looking for the nail manufacturer for recompense.

Let's play the game here for a second.

What will the amount of money be and just what, if the suit was won, would the money go to?

Take-off weight was calculated to be 186,9 tons, including 95 tons of fuel, which was one tone over the maximum take-off weight.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just WHY was the take-off attempted?

I heard that after the crash, the loadsheet mysteriously disappeared.......

Sky News report at 1500 today says that French report, just out, has blamed "a metal strip on the runway".

...breath in...

Reports in 3 US papers confirming AC 2's reply.
French magistrate Judge Christophe Regnard in his report states that the metal strip played a 'direct role' in the accident.
Think the French have now officially bitten off more than they can chew.

Strange (or perhaps not so strange, after all;)) that the French have so clearly forgotten the role of the Flight Engineer in the Concorde, with his propensity of pulling the fire handle of an operating engine, thereby sealing the fate of the big delta-winged bird.

But then again, the French are being...well, typically French.:uhoh:

Continental may be charged for Concorde Crash (Press Report)
 

There were many holes lined up in many slices of cheese for this one to happen. I won't comment on my opinion as to what was the primary contributor- as everyone else has been. I will say that rather than punishment, I think it is interesting that no one is looking at "the easiest way to make sure this doesn't happen again". Surely we should learn, change and move on.

Any takers?

I did want to take up LatviaCalling's posting I work in airside operations and have reasonable knowledge of runway inspections policies and practices at about 9 airports in Europe and the US. I know of no such 'agreement' at any airport close to the size of CDG that the runway should be inspected after the take off of every heavy. Let alone this 'agreement' being rolled into any Aerodrome Safety Policies. The most prescriptive (in terms of quantitative measures) runway inspection policies I have seen are limited to "we will inspect the runway x times a day". I'm not saying that's right or wrong (although I am always looking for a better way of doing something)- in fact, every airport should do it's own risk assessment.

Just imagine what an inspection after every heavy would mean for an airport like LHR. That's an inspection every minute or two of nearly 13,000 ft of a strip of tarmac about 148 ft wide (often in the dark). As you increase the inspections you also need to account for the hazards you are introducing onto the runway- just think of all those vehicles you MIGHT have needed to find that strip of titanium! Again, I'm sure there's a better way of doing what CDG were doing on the day, but other posters have covered that.

OK, just imagine a scenario here. Bear with me - I'm not trying the defend or attack anyone here - I'm just trying to put a different perspective on this discussion.


Imaging there's this chap called Kevin the boy-racer. One day, Kevin is cleaning his beloved Ford XR3i Turbo nob-mobile, when he notices that the rear bumper has worked loose. Rather than go to Ford and pay for some new brackets, he decides to fudge something together in his garage, using bits of old scrap metal.

Pleased that he can now buy some more speakers with the money he has saved by not buying the proper brackets, he goes out for a razz around town late that evening.

Whilst driving down a 70mph dual carriageway, the home-made brackets work loose and the bumper falls off. Unfortunately, Kevin has got his music on, so he doesn't hear the bumper fall off.

A few miles behind him is a woman, returning from visiting relatives, with her two children in the car. It's dark, so the woman doesn't see the bumper lying in the road, but as she hits it it bursts her tyres, and she spins off at 70mph and tragically hits a tree. Both her and her children are fatally injured.

So. Who's fault was this accident?

Is it the boy racer, for not using the proper parts, or do you simply say "sh!t happens" ?


In the concorde crash, there were several contributing factors, the Continental strip being one of them. If any one of them had not happened, the accident would not have occured.

The way the French are isolating just the CO strip is not acceptable. They should hold the other factors EQUALLY accountable.

That said, nobody can argue that if CONTINENTAL had used ALUMINIUM instead of TITANIUM (as per the manufacturers instructions), THIS INCIDENT WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.

I wonder if we would all feel differently had that bit of metal fallen off a bit later on?

It might have landed harmlessly and caused no damage.

It might have come down in a school playground killing a child or two?

Should the penalty be different depending on the unpredictable outcome and if so why?

Perhaps the penalty should always be high because the outcome could be serious even if it isn't always? Drunk drivers don't always kill people.

I would like to mention in this discussion that after recently talking to the lead AAIB investigator in the initial report, which too blamed the titanium strip, they were right with their French colleges at the BEA in agreeing that their sequence of events was correct.

After all the technical accident investigation was a joint effort. Both the AAIB and the BEA were given a hard time doing their job by the French judicial system and their parallel report (published today)

The only 2 things they disagree on were noted in the original report, the exact source of ignition. the Uk giys said it was the landing gear brake fan power leads arcing and the the way the tank failed. The French believe in the shock-wave, the UK believe an a similar model but say it may have been punctured with debris to the side of where the main failure was, therefore causing the failure.

Lets put the spacer to rest for once and for all.

Up until the point where the aircraft hit the strip, the aircraft was dead straight on the run way with no steering or rudder inputs to keep it straight has the bogie been mis-aligned. In fact if you look at the FDR trace there is a slight bit of rudder to compensate in the completely opposite direction.

When the aircraft hit the strip, the tank ruptured and the fuel caught alight. Both engines on that side then surged and had zero power output. this caused the aircraft to veer over and and clip the runway light after rotation.

None of the reports go into detail on the what ifs thats not what they do.

Had the No2 engine not been shut down, it would have in a likely hood failed in a similar way to the No1 did 60-90 seconds later due to the fire in that area killing control systems. If they had been able, with the gear down, to get enough airspeed before these both failed is very debatable. Vzrc for 2 engines with gear down was over 300knots.

Maybe they could have got enough speed up to detach the flame, but the damage it was doing was massive. Their only option was no come back to CDG - am emergency landing Le Bourget was never going to have been achievable, if the aviators amoungs us look at the flight tracks.

I just saw this in a Belgium News Paper, I try to translate it and resumee it, you find the original one in french at:
http://www.lesoir.be/rubriques/mond/...9_283182.shtml

Sorry for my bad inglish!!!javascript:smilie(':confused:')
confused
In brief it say:
1) A original default discovered in 1979 and not resolve is one of the cause of the accident. The judge authorise french autorities to find why nothing was done in 1979 to resolve this default.
2) A little piece of metal from an DC10 Continental Airlines is also part of the accident. It seems that the replacement of the original part was not autorised by the FAA, and that the instalation was not properly done. For such reason, the judge will ear 5 people involved in this replacement, employee of CA (as I understood).
3) It also mention that it is posible that CA will be examn too.
4) The trainig of the crew is also mentioned and that the pilot rotate at a slow velocity and that the tecnician shut off the engine quiet prematurely. But question is made as, was there other solutions??

:confused:

Do AF captains routinely give a 'Gallic shrug' to MTOW and, more importantly, RTOW values when clearly overweight?

First take the plank out of thine own eyes, my Froggy friends.......

Not impressed by AF risk management culture. So I don't pax with them.

Isn´t this verdict in the American spirit?
Why the blame policy? Unfortunately this seems to be the real world today. Money talks!

A better example than the bumper would be a Semi (aka a Lorry for some of you) that constantly retreads its tyres and drives them beyond recommended specs until they burst. Burst semi tyres are a common road hazard -- they shouldn't be there, cause problems, need to be removed, and arise from questionable (but largely tolerated) maintenance procedures.

So Kevin the boy trucker blows a tyre and keeps going, not noticing it because he's got 17 other good ones.

Karen and her family come along in the dark and hit the blown tyre. While for a normal car, this would cause consternation, Karen's utlrasleek McLaren sports car has a design defect whereby if a tiny piece of rubber gets stuck in the intake, the engine overheats and the car catches fire. Flames shoot ouyt of the hood, and Karen's looking at a one-lane tunnel -- she can swerve and hit a tree, or go through the tunnel and try to stop on the other side. She eases off the gas, and drives into the tunnel, gradually losing sight and systems. Eventually, the steering cables are burned through, the car spins out, hits a couple of pedestrians and explodes.

Is it Kevin the Trucker's fault for using a questionable but tolerated maintenance procedure? Or is it MacLaren's fault for failing to rectify a known design problem? Or do you just say "tough luck".
----
If someone flicks a cigarette off a road bridge, and it lands in the bed of a dumptruck hauling black gunpowder, the smoke is clearly guilty of littering. Is he also guilty of homicide? Or could he have had a reasonable expectation that vehicles certified for road transport had some sort of protection against common hazards, like lit cigarettes?
---

The distinction is between a trigger event and an underlying systemic failure. If the CO metal strip weren't there, would there have been a disaster on that day? Probably not. But there would have been a disaster sooner or later. All the other pieces were there; all it needed was a statiscally fairly common event. Unless, of course, you checked the runway for debris before every Concorde takeoff . (blowouts don't seem to pose as much of a threat to other A/C).

My tuppence worth.....

IMHO there are 3 main events here each that needs to be viewed both in relation to the other 2 events AND in isolation.

(1) The strip.... it will need to be established if this in fact came into contact with the tyre. (I understand the tyre damage fingerprint matched the shape of the strip).
If it IS the case that the strip was hit it then needs to be ascertained why the strip 'fell off' the CON a/c, ie was there any negligence in the way it was fitted. Dependent on the answers to this SOME of the culpability may be adjudged to lay with CON.

(2) The Aircraft.... regardless of how the strip came to be where it was, if the tyre DID strike it should or should not the aircraft be reasonably expected to cope with the incident. Here I'm sure the CON people will be asking why BA retrofitted mods whilst AF didn't. I'm very sure that the CON people will produce documents proving that engineering data that led BA to retrofit was shared with AF. Dependent on the answers to this SOME culpability may be adjudged to lay with AF

(3) The engine shut-down... Presumed 'false warning' - I'm not going to speculate.

In all fairness to the French just wanted to point out that all French news sources I've seen are stating that:
1. the metal strip on the runway from the CO DC 10, and
2. a fault in the design of the Concorde
were the main causes of this sad and unfortunate accident.

So the French authorities are NOT solely blaming CO, but also blaming the design of an aircraft they built themselves. So cool do mes amis with the attacks on France. And as some of you so correctly point out, Yes, the French are being very French... what else do you expect?

On a side note, I've only been living in France a couple of years and am still totally lost with the French legal system. There was a very interesting story running for a while a few months ago. Apparently somebody got drunk at a dinner party, and crashed his/her car after the dinner killing himself/herself and somebody else not with them (can't remember if it was people in another car, pedestrians)... So the French legal system brought the couple who hosted the dinner party to court claiming taht they shouldn't have permitted their gustes to drive home in a drunken state, and they were partly at fault for the incident... Just found it interesting and must say made me think.


Bonne journée...
:ok:

From Airbus A380 Mega-liner - Weight Savings by Titanium:So it's fairly obvious that titanium is common in the airport environment, and it's clear that like all metal it is subject to fatigue so it can crack and pieces can be dropped on runways. I don't see what the difference between a crash caused by an authorized piece of titanium versus an unauthorized piece of titanium, probably because I do not think like a lawyer does. In either case, the titanium is just as hard, and so severe tire damage must be dealt with. BA did so, by installing deflectors and by limiting tire wear. AF did nothing, even though it knew of tire damage had lead to fuel tank leaks in the past. The fixes applied after the crash are a tacit admission that FOD was not preventable and the Concorde needed strengthening.

Of course the missing wheel spacer had nothing to do with it...engineering tests that proved otherwise were "inconvienent" huh?

@ElectroVlasic

As i am doing my master thesis in alloy physic I feel obliged to post a reply.

There is are huge difference, between different alloys made with Titanium.

An alloy itself is a mixture of different metalls which but together have a totally different density and property, than every single component on its own.
You can get a huge amount of different titanium alloys which all have a totally different characteristc and density.

So even if airbus is using titanium alloys, it dosnt mean that its the same alloy that hit the concorde.

(Although given the lack of information that i have it could even be.)

Hope my message made sense and please excuse my english, it has been a long time since i last wrote something in english.

The RTOW for that day with no wind was 185'070 kg.

The loadsheet TOW was 184'880 kg. This TOW was based on 2000 kg burn of taxi fuel.

1) Concorde on that day, according to BEA, burned 1000 kg on the taxiway. (800 Kg according to the F/E when challenged by the Captain as they line up on the runway)

2) 19 bags were missing on the loadsheet: an other 394 kg extra according to BEA

AF used the standard 84 kg weight for all pax, which was the most penalizing weight for that day. (Terrible safety culture...)
With these weight, and because of the bags error and the generous taxi fuel, Concorde was 1'181 kg overweight (0,6% of RTOW)
If you use the standard weight for male and female (88 and 70 kg) this will reduce the payload and the overweight was 687 kg. (0,35% of RTOW)

The wind at T/O time was 020/3 at the threshold 26 and 300/3 at the threshold 08. The tower mention 090/8 with the T/O clearance

I do believe that all these little errors were a contributing factors when you add them up.

AF or the arrogant French are not the only one in this world to play with taxi fuel to meet an RTOW or to make loadsheet errors on bags. My company, which is the second biggest British airline, is doing that everyday, (unintentionnaly of course)

"Take the plank out of thine own eyes" as somebody mention:rolleyes:

A still air wind velocity was used to calculate a RTOW of 185070kg?

What would the real RTOW have been with a wind of 090/8 as passed by ATC?

What was the crew's reaction to the difference between these two values?

Yes, RTOW was for no wind. The addition of tailwind, plus the slight overweight, plus the spacer missing were all contributing factors to the crash.

If you read the CVR, the Captain asked the F/E about taxi fuel used as they were lining up on the runway. The F/E answer was "800 KG", which means that the Captain was fully aware that they didn't burned as much as expected and consequently were slightly overweight. The First Officer answer was then: "No changes on 2nd segment limitation".
Obviously none of them mention anything about the tailwind condition.
Now, if they were 1000 kg less, with a 5kts headwind, would the outcome been different ? I don't think so.
Finally some people think that the F/E shutdown a good engine on his own: wrong. He said to the Captain:"engine failure number 2" and then he suggested "Shut down number 2". At that stage, number 2 N1 was 5% with a Fire Warning. The Captain then, instructed the F/E to carry on the Engine Fire drill, a bit too early according to AF procedure.
Expert like us can easyly find some little errors on the procedure, either fom the airline or the crew. We have hours and lot of information to look at while the pilot had much less info and more important only a few second to decide what to do.

The cause of the crash is the piece of metal AND a Concorde design problem and not the crew action or loading procedure, even if we can all learn from being complacent on numbers some time.
The problem with the Continental piece of metal is that it was an unapproved part unproperly fit. This is why AF had a good argument to sue.

fear_not: Your writing is excellent. Thanks for making the effort. I wish I could write in a second language.

It would be interesting to know if titianium strips could break off of other places on commercial jetliners. I quoted the article because it shows titanium is found on the exterior of the aircraft (tracks for flaps, landing gear parts, wing sections, etc). Presumably fatigue could cause strips to break off. It's also found in the fan blades for jet turbines, and these are known to break from time to time.

A lot has been made of the fact that the CON DC-10 had an unauthorized titanium wear strip installed. But even though it triggered the accident, it's really irrelevant. As I said in my previous post, I don't see what the difference between a crash caused by an authorized piece of titanium versus an unauthorized piece of titanium. The fact is that titanium is a common material used on aircraft and the engineers must prepare for FOD damage As you say, different alloys have different characteristics, so engineers must prepare for the worst case. BA understood the risk from tire bursts and installed deflectors to help mitigate it. AF chose to not do so.

--ev--

acm,

None of your posts mention the incorrectly assembled main wheel bogey, which would have added rolling drag and heated the tyres.

Is this an inconvenience, because it might deflrct blame from CO to AF?

I don’t understand how some of you can say that Continental has no responsibility in this accident?
Every accident has a root cause and in this case it is the object that fell of the Continental plane. After the root cause is a number of other issues that:
a) Sadly made the effects of the root cause worse. (Overweight, spacer, etc)
Or b) Should have limited the effects of the root cause and following issues but where unable to do so. (tyre exploding in large pieces instead of small, tank leaking after being hit, etc)
Whoever is behind the a) and b) problems also share in the responsibility but they never free whoever was responsible for the root cause, not even when the root cause was unintentional and something that happens often.

Well, no one argues about the root cause of the accident, but one can argue that the root cause should not have caused the accident.

I'll exaggerate to explain.

Suppose the Concorde wings fell off every time it rained. One could say to avoid an accident, never expose the Concorde to rain. But someone else could say that the Concorde should be able to fly through rain, and if it cannot, then it is not designed correctly.

Here I'm saying the Concorde needed to be tolerant of tire bursts, even from FOD as opposed to tire wear, regardless of the source of the FOD. FOD is a part of airline operations, much like rain is. BA knew previous tire bursts had punctured the fuel tanks and had fitted deflectors to mitigate this risk, but AF had not.

--ev--

Ergo....
 

Air France was grossly negligent in not fitting the deflectors, so as to avoid all forseen difficulties.

Not unforseen either, as BA clearly had forseen the likely problems, and did something about it, whereas Air France, with its head in the sand, turned a blind eye to the problem.

Case closed.:mad:

DingerX, I detect from your posting you have some experience in a 'certain' field!! Very nice summary put in laymans terms. First poster to hit the nail on the head, IMHO!! Maybe the others will talk 'percentages' now!!!

ElectroVlasic,
As you know there is no way to design a plane, or anything else, so it can withstand any kind of abuse you throw at it. You design it to handle all reasonable expectable abuse and then you add a safety margin on top of that.

Based on your reasoning the question then is if it was reasonable to expect there to be something that was strong enough to effectively scalp the tyre in to a 3 m piece of high speed debris instead of making it explode in to small pieces as they expected and Concorde had been designed (modified) to handle.

Since BA’s Concorde engineers seems to agree that their deflectors would not have been able to contain such a large piece and the outcome would have been the same even with them I find it hard to assign responsibility to AF for this.

You tried using a different case so let’s use the case when CX dropped a piece on a car in Bangkok earlier this month. Was it CX for dropping the piece, or the car manufacturer for not building a car strong enough to withstand something that heavy who was responsible?
I believe it was CX. May be some can be shared with one or more of Boeing, RR and any maintenance companies who had worked on it but it was CX who was in charge of maintaining it so that nothing got dropped and thus they are responsible.

I got in to this thread because there are a lot of people here that thinks Continental has no responsibility in what happened. Per the opening post Continental sad “We strongly disagree that anything Continental did was the cause of the Concorde accident……” thus not wanting to take any responsibility for what happened after they, very unfortunately, lost a part of questionable spec from one of their planes.

From what I have learned from reading and talking to people with an understanding of Concorde and the accident Continental played a very unfortunate but important role and should take their part of the responsibility. The other things that also failed may reduce their part but can never remove it.

OK cmf, what if the spacer had been fitted, and RTOW had not been ignored. The piece of titanium would still be on the runway, but would concord have hit it? Had ADP checked the runway more often, and at a speed below their usual 60 mph plus, would it have been there.

You can't single out one root cause here, unless you have an agenda.

Ark royal,

I did mention the incorrect wheel assembly as "the missing spacer" in my post.

AF should not deflect the blame to CO, but should give CO a fair share of responsablity. If the metal strip would have been an approved part, fitted according approved maintenance procedure,
CO would have walk away "clean" from this accident.

AF will take the major part of the blame due to:

1) Failure to comply to the 1979 BEA recommendation to consolidated wings tank

2) Acft over weight for the condition of the day

3) Incorrect maintenance practice (wheel assembly)

4) F/E licence expired.

Even if the last 3 points had very little incidence on the crash it demonstrate poor standard practice.

AF choose not to installed the deflector on the main wheel for the following reason: in case of tyre burst these deflectors could broke apart and be a more serious hazard to wing tank than piece of rubber.
As cmf mention, even BA's engineer agree with the fact that deflector wouldn't contain large piece or tyre. BA fitted the deflectors with cables to prevent them to hit a wing tank in case of tyre burst. Nobody knows if these cables would have do the job.

To the attention of the few idiots on these forum, some technical choices had nothing to do with "French style" or "arrogance" or whatever. What would you say if a deflector was the cause of a crash by piercing the wing tank ?
AF took, what they believed, the safest decision regarding the deflectors.
As Danny mentionned in the beginning of this discussion, leave the xenophobic comment away from this forum, or we can start discussing about the British Railways system which kill people every year in crash, or the NHS who made the headline every week about terrible blunders. "Failure" had nothing to do with nationality ...

OK, acm, let us for the moment agree with your comments re: the French and Air France.

On the other hand, BA decided that the deflectors were indeed a good idea, and fitted same to their Concorde aircraft.

What could have been the exact reason AF choose not to do so, when clearly the fitment of the deflectors enhanced safety to a rather large degree.

It is a bit like an airline not incorporating a service bulletin on an aircraft, then later having an incident...and the lawyers in court asking..."well then, just why did you not consider compliance, when other airlines clearly thought it was a good idea, and haven't had similar incidents as a result?"

Sadly, apparently the deflectors were not mandatory, so we can cast a few brickbats at the regulators as well...

IF there is any doubt, 'err on the side of safety...every damn time, IMO.

Arkroyal,
If that plane would have crashed that day even if the tyre had not been shredded by the titanium strip then Continental does not share in the responsibility.
From the reports I have seen the single event (root) that triggered all following events was the strip that should not have fallen off from the Continental plane. Had that strip not been on the runway then none would have happened and none of us would know that they took of a little bit overweight and with a spacer problem etc.
This is why Continental has a large responsibility and should earn up to what they, unintentionally and with large amounts of bad luck, triggered.

CMF,
You are right in saying that the inital trigger event was hitting the metal strip, but there are still other factors. It has been stated by some in this thread that the runway should have been inspected prior to departure, while others have said that such an inspection prior to every departure would have been problamatic, given the traffic out of CDG. Two points to be made:

1. Out of all of the aircraft that departed CDG, only one type was especially vunerable to tire failure, the Concorde. I would assume that Air France would do all that it could to ensure that the runway was clear of any debris, given the track record of the aircraft receiveing significant damage from tire failure.

2. I would be willing to bet that there were no more than 2 or 3 Concorde departures on any given day from any airport. Since schedules are known in advance, I do not see where scheduling an runway inspection immediately prior to a Concorde departure would have been that problamatic, and I wonder why it wasn't part of everyday airport operations.

Parts will always fall off airplanes, as well as any other vehicle that travels on the runways. I see the primary failure here as not recognizing that this aircraft represented significantly more risk during departures, and the airlines that operated it did not arrange for specific operational procedures to mitigate that risk at the airports they serviced.

Well, cmf, it is a known fact that bits and pieces fall off aeroplanes from time to time, whether properly engineered and fit, or not.

So, why not paint all airlines with the same broad brush, and find 'em guilty because...sh!t happens.

Bits came off the Concorde rudder, on several occasions, and could well have hit a ship at sea, injuring a few, yet I see no concerted attack on Concorde operators about this.

Clearly the Commander of the concerned aircraft departed slightly overweight, considering the prevailing wind conditions, with a wheel spacer improperly fitted (altho he would have no idea about this), yet somehow Continental is responsible for the whole shebang because a small bit fell off their previously departing aircraft, on the day in question.

Phooey, I say, because IF this is all it took to bring the big delta-winged bird down, than just as clearly, the original design was deficient to begin with...at least BA did something to alliviate the potential problem (deflectors), yet AF chose not to do so.
AF is guilty as hell, make no mistake.

Of course, the French authorties may well have a different idea about all this.......what a surprise.:yuk:

PS:
I can well remember BOAC sitting at the end of 25L in LAX so many years ago, with their 707 conway powered machine (enroute LHR) mentioning...'ah, we will have to delay takeoff just a bit, due to a short taxy...sorry'.
Clearly these folks had the right idea, what's Air France's excuse?

It is also a known fact that a lot of drivers in Miami drive against red lights, does that mean that the driver having the green light is responsible? Does it matter if the car having the green light was overloaded or had one bad break pad?

No, it will be the driver who didn’t stop for the red light that will be paying for the damages. If he is lucky no-one got hurt but if he is very unfortunate and someone got killed then the consequences will be dramatically more severe for the same mistake.

BA / AF where lucky that nothing got hit when pieces of Concorde fell off. Can you imagine what demands they would face if it hit a couple of kids in NY?