Captain Airclues;
I believe the photos show in both cases that the deflectors are present - bit difficult to see in the AF photo but they're there.


From the BEA report:

Quote:

---

the aircraft weight at which the takeoff was commenced was 185,880 kg, for a MTOW of 185,070 kg. The investigation confirmed these figures and showed that this excess weight had no significant effect on the takeoff and acceleration distances.

---

and from "Findings:"

Quote:

---

Repeating the calculations for the flight preparation showed that the estimated weight of the aircraft on departure was in accordance with operational limits.

---

Taking into account the fuel not consumed during taxiing, the aircraft’s takeoff weight in fact exceeded the maximum weight by about one ton. Any effect on takeoff performance from this excess weight was negligible.
[/quote] and, regarding the tailwind,

Quote:

---

Equally, the controller’s announcement of a

tailwind did not lead to the slightest comment from the crew, which is, as we have seen, surprising.

---

Quote:

---

For a tailwind of 8 kt, the takeoff weight is reduced to 183,300 kilograms due to a tyre speed limitation. 1.17.1.4.2 Extracts of Procedures from Concorde TU Manual Paragraph 10, Wind limit, page II-01.10.4, specifies that the tailwind limit for a takeoff is 20 kt.

---

Regarding the #2 engine shutdown:

Quote:

---

The shutdown of engine 2 before reaching 400 feet resulted from the Captain and Flight Engineer’s analysis of the situation. Indeed, less than three seconds after the failure of

---

Quote:

---

engine 2 was announced by the FE and the controller had informed the crew of the presence of flames at the rear of the aircraft, the engine’s fire alarm (red alarm) and the associated gong sounded. The exceptional environment described above quite naturally led the FE to ask to shut down the engine. This was immediately confirmed by the Captain’s calling for the engine fire procedure. This engine had in fact practically been at idle power for several seconds and the fire alarm was sounding. The engine was therefore shut down following the “engine fire” procedure after having run for twelve seconds at low power. It is important to note that the Concorde Flight Manual requires an immediate reaction by the crew in case of a red alarm.

---

Casper,
I don't know where you are from, but I cannot tolerate you have this attitude towards France when you obviously haven't read the report !

Read it and then make your comments. The deflectors wouldn't have helped ar all, and it all comes from a design problem which operators never wanted to correct while knowing all the issues. As far as I know, France was not alone to design and operate the bird...

The deflectors in question were to prevent water spray being ingested by the engines as stated above.

From what I know about French Law, if an aircraft drops something on the runway which causes an incident, the owners of that aircraft are accountable. Not taking into account the design flaws and the fact that the tyres puncturing the fuel tanks when bursting were known issues, if the FOD was not on that runway that plane would have been put in the situation that resolved into the crash. Right or wrong, that's how the French government see it.

Water deflectors
 

I have little tolerance for the ongoing nonsense spread about this tragic accident, and I won't comment on it again. I have analysed the accident in my Diploma Thesis, which is available for download, as is the Official Report. Please read at least the BEA report, and if you're curious, read my analysis, too.

Getting that out of the way: I'd like to clarify some little details about the water deflectors.

• Both Air France and British Airways Concordes are, and have always been, fitted with the water deflectors.
• Their function is to deflect water from contaminated runways away from the engine main and auxiliary air intakes. Demonstrating operation on a flooded runway is a certification test.
• The mentioned optional service bulletin, implemented by BA but not by AF, does not concern the water deflectors themselves, but restraining cables intended to keep the water deflectors from flying away and damaging the airframe in case they are torn off.
• Although the water deflectors of the accident aircraft were torn off, broke, and flew away, they did not contribute to the accident, nor would their absense have made any difference.
• Read the report, it has several photos of the water deflectors, both installed in one piece, and torn off and broken.

Bernd

The water deflector detached from the main deflector on the bogie of
the subject aeroplane.
You missed this vital detail in your very detailed thesis.

As this is my first post here, I should be clear from the start that I'm not in the aviation industry - never have been and probably never will be. However, I have been engaged in previous "discussions" on this subject at Another Place so I hope I've learned something from those who are in the industry, particularly those with experience of Concorde operations.

There are a few issues I'd like to comment on:

Runway Inspections
It's my understanding that, prior to this accident, runway inspections were carried out "at regular intervals" and not specifically prior to a Concorde movement. The inspections prior to each Concorde movement were only introduced as a result of the accident.

Spray Deflectors
As someone already stated, these were designed to prevent spray from the main gear entering the engines and were, structurally, pretty "light-weight". Due to concerns from previous incidents, BA chose to reinforce theirs with a steel cable but I believe this was to prevent broken pieces of the deflector from causing too much damage.

"Punctured" Fuel Tank
Again from my understanding, this was not a tyre burst like any that had happened before, to any type. In this case, the titanium "blade" caused the tyre to rupture in such a way that a 2 metre slab hit the underside of the wing at high speed, causing internal shock waves to rupture the tank from within.

Tyre Bursts
I've seen it stated many times elsewhere that "any other type" would not have batted an eyelid in the same circumstances but I've yet to see any authoritative evidence. Is there any evidence of what happens when any other type runs over a titanium "blade" at high speed? On the other hand, there have been fatal accidents and serious incidents following tyre bursts on other types.

I'm just not sure that this type of incident could reasonably have been predicted from the experiences of the previous incidents, where much smaller pieces of debris caused much less damage. It's also my understanding that the earlier type of incidents had ceased in the latter years (~20?) of its service.

Now, I'm adopting the "Brace" position in case anyone feels like ripping my comments to shreds. I'll remind you all again that I am not pretending to have any authority on these matters whatsoever. As a Concorde fan, I simply feel the need to speak in its defence from time to time. :)

PJ2.... Your narrative is incorrect.

The FE shut down an engine on the runway prior to V1 without any reference to anybody else on the flight deck (read the CVR transcript). There is no 2/3 crew SOP in the world that has one guy shutting down engines below a safe height let alone unmonitored. As the other engine subsequently failed before the gear could be raised their fate was sealed....Unable to accelerate to V2 and all the drag of the gear hanging in the breeze.

Had the FE not embarked on that Maverick course of action there should have been enough Hyd pressure from the two lame engines to raise the gear and fly away. When the fuel cells were empty the spectacular fuel fire would have ceased, with some good flying they may just have saved the day. Being two tonnes over max tyre speed did not help, neither did ignoring eight knots of tailwind.

AF ploughed in an A320 F-GGED a VOR on approach to Stasbourg in 1992 because the pilots did not know the difference between FPA 3.3 and VS 3300fpm... despite having the rather large clue that the a/c would not slow below 280kts. Ultimately they ploughed in a serviceable a/c well short of the field killing 87 people. The did not have GPWS. It was not considered that French pilots required that protection.

So when people talk of arrogance I don't believe they are far wide of the mark, particularly when you consider that since Concorde AF have lost another 2 airframes - Both with Human Factors as the primary cause

AF358 F-GLZQ A340 at YYZ 2-Aug-2005 ...Attempted landing it thunderstorm
AF7775 F100 PUF-CDG 25-Jan-2007 ....Failure to de-ice before departure

Yep!

And they are suing everyone over the Toronto overrun accident.

'It wasn't our fault' !!! :rolleyes:

The decision to prosecute has much more far-reaching implications with a cumulatively negative impact on flight safety. Article 3.1 of ICAO Annex 13 states that:

What are the chances of conducting an effective investigation into an aircraft accident if there is a risk of witnesses being prosecuted if they tell the truth?

Some Facts.
 

Well, so is yours. Actually having read the report and its appendices helps.

The engine shutdown was past v1.

Please read the CVR transcript:

Please read my analysis, made after consultation with Concorde's Chief aerodynamicist, Clive Leyman. It shows that, regardless of the appropriateness of the F/E's shutting down engine no. 2, it would not have worked anyway as long as the fire was burning, because it was ingesting kerosene and/or flames. Even engine no. 1, farther away from the flames, did not reach its full power.

Even so, only one second after the Flight Engineer announced that he was going to shut down engine no. 2, the Captain ordered the engine fire procedure, which includes shutting down the engine. Presumably, the F/E took more than one second to announce his intentions, so it coincided with the Captain's orders.

1/ Engines 1 and 2 provide Green hydraulic pressure, which is the only hydraylic system available for gear retraction.

2/ Engine 1 was anything but lame. It was running, after a brief loss of power, at normal takeoff power, although, unlike engines 3 and 4, it did not quite reach the demanded contingency power.

2/ The gear could not be raised because tyre pieces had damaged a door, preventing door movement and thus a necessary signal for unlocking and movement of the landing gear proper.

1/ Those canisters in the aircraft that hold fuel are called "fuel tanks". a "Fuel Cell" is a hydrogen/oxygen-fueled cell that provides electric power. Concorde has no fuel cells.

2/ Assuming a constant fuel flow rate, the fire would have continued burning for at least another 2 minutes. As the fire prevented the left hand side engines from working normally, nothing could have been gained. In practice, fuel flow from the leak would reduce when the tank was becoming near empty. It is even conceivable that a nearly-empty tank might contain an explosive fuel-air-mixture and explode. Waiting for the tank to empty was not an option.

3/ The wing was starting to deform from the intense heat of the fire, accelerating loss of control.

4/ There are indications that the flight crew was well aware of a slight overweight/tail wind condition, leading to tyre stress very close to, or possibly slightly exceeding the rolling limit. Apparently they attempted, regardless of the approaching runway edge, a somewhat early, but slow, rotation.

The reason for the extraordinary tyre stress on Concorde aircraft is the combination of a very high Vr/V2 speeds, and practically zero lift prior to rotation. Rotation-initiation produces a small amount of negative lift for a brief time, so an early and slow rotation can alleviate tyre stress on Concorde takeoffs. Conventional aircraft already produce significant lift during takeoff roll before rotation.


What has this got to do with Concorde? Oh, you're trying to "prove" that all Air France cockpit crews are incompetent. Nice try.


Bernd

Bernd, you are obviously well informed, what is your opinion of why their takeoff roll was headed toward the edge of the runway to begin with, and is it possible that had they stayed near the centerline of the runway, they would have never hit any FOD?

Thank you in advance.

NVPilot
The report states that the drift towards the left of centreline began after the tyre had been damaged.
Basically the report says (as far as my reading of it is concerned) that everything up to the point when they ran over the piece of metal (start up, taxi, line up and launch) was, in all respects, normal. That includes the CofG, the take-off weight and the tailwind component. Frankly, my understanding of the report is that the crew did nothing wrong and that it all went pear shaped after hitting the metal strip on the runway just before VR. Thereafter their fate was pretty much sealed.
Much has been made of the missing spacer on the undercarriage bogie but, again, the report categorically states that its absence had nothing to do with the accident.

I've walked a few runways both reactively as well as proactively.

Immediately following an incident the debris is distributed mostly along the flight path with about a 15 deg side to side dispersal.

Several days later the debris has migrated to the very edges within a foot or so of the grass overhang.

So yes the runways are cleaner along the center, but you can build a plane from the parts near the edges.

This part of the discussion is statistical at most and I am not sure of it's application to the courts.

NVpilot,

Xeque's post pretty much sums it up, thanks a lot. If you don't believe it, take a look at the FDR data yourself, they're available as Appendix 4 to the official report. No rudder inputs out of the ordinary are recorded, up to the point where they hit the titanium strip. Centre line tracking and acceleration was normal.

The missing spacer may have slightly exacerbated the bogie movement after the tyre burst, but certainly not before. Even then its influence above and beyond the asymmetric forces caused by the burst tyre itself and asymmetric thrust would have been negligible.

Not specifically to NVpilot: when engaging in tirades against alleged French arrogance, please keep in mind that the AAIB was also involved in the investigation. Although they did contest some points, and complained about being hindered by the French judicial inquiries (separate from the BEA investigation!), they did not argue with the non-effect of the spacer.


Bernd

FOD Deflectors
 

Look at the photos again. There are FOD deflectors on both aircraft

Magplug;
Nonsense. How could an engine be shut down "prior to V1" when the aircraft had not yet struck the debris on the runway and the engine had not yet been affected? It is you who needs to reference the Report, not I.

The report states:

DL-EDI has hit the nail on the head when he says that the piece of tyre did NOT puncture the fuel tank and that it was an internal shock wave reflected from the upper surface of the tank that caused it to burst open. This eventuality had been anticipated by the manufacturer so that the clearance to service required that there should be an air gap between fuel and structure in this tank on take off, and this was incorporated in SOPs. Because the crash aircraft had elected to go for a short taxi (hence downwind T/O), this air gap did not exist because anticipated fuel had not been used. Just one link in the chain! But an important one that might constitute an intentional breach of SOPs.

Pontifex:

Just for the record, that's a shade more than I was suggesting. :eek:

I wasn't aware of this aspect of the SOP and have no idea whether or not it was breached. :hmm:

PJ2
 

The "anti-French agenda" arises because the French will do anything to protect their national champions. In this case Air France.

It's not a secret that in France the truth will always be sacrificed to preserve the good reputation of AFR, Airbus, etc. The French public think that's normal, so why deny it?

Was that after the relatively similar incident in Washington in 1979 ?

Regarding early rotation I'm wondering if the pilot wanted to make sure to miss the 747 waiting on the left side of the runaway (in which french president Chirac was returning from a trip in Japan) ?

DL-EDI has hit the nail on the head when he says that the piece of tyre did NOT puncture the fuel tank and that it was an internal shock wave reflected from the upper surface of the tank that caused it to burst open. This eventuality had been anticipated by the manufacturer so that the clearance to service required that there should be an air gap between fuel and structure in this tank on take off, and this was incorporated in SOPs. Because the crash aircraft had elected to go for a short taxi (hence downwind T/O), this air gap did not exist because anticipated fuel had not been used. Just one link in the chain! But an important one that might constitute an intentional breach of SOPs.

Unsurprisingly, I don't know but, as far as I do know, none of the earlier incidents were similar in that they resulted in more straight forward punctures of the skin rather than any significant shock wave.

Sorry about the second identical posting - finger trouble! Atakacs - yes! I also understand that, had rotate been at the correct speed, the fire would not have been in contact with the structure and, had the aircraft stayed airborne just a little longer, all the fuel would have gone from the tank such was the size of the breach. The fire would have extinguished itself, and had the good engine not been shut down, there is a significant possibility that it could just have been a spectacular incident

Quote: ".........how can a maintenance worker in Texas be considered subject to French criminal law?"

Try the same way the NatWest three were subject to USA law. Try the same way Charles Taylor of Liberia was subject to some self-appointed court in The Netherlands. Try the same way Manuel Noriega was apprehended via a military invasion in another country and made subject to the USA's courts. Then there are all the inmates of Guantanamo Bay.

Self-appointed kangaroo courts that give themselves worldwide jurisdiction are springing up all over the place and some existing courts in many countries, particularly the USA, are giving themselves worldwide jurisdiction. Political toadies such as those in the UK government kow-tow to this out of control pseudo-justice. If they had any balls they would put out warrants for the apprehension of all of those insolent foreign persons who have pushed their own courts aside and after trial and conviction let said foreign persons have many years to reflect on the wrongness of their insolent actions.

AAIB wrote as a dissenting comment in the report that it could have been either the shock wave, or a penetration, or a combination of both that ruptured the wing skin and fuel tank. They said neither theory could claim precedence.

Informally, AAIB people were saying at the time that it was far more likely that it was a penetration by a lump of rubber since this had already happened, at Dulles in 79. There were IIRC some seven holes in the wing skin, and a passenger even saw a lump go through the top of the wing.

The French, I think, were anxious to conclude that the entire BTSC accident sequence was totally unprecedented -- which is why they came up with the, quite frankly, implausible theory about why the leaking fuel ignited -- because if any part of it had a precedent, then it should have been prevented from recurring. This explains the indictment by the French of DGCA people and some of the Concorde designers.

The French BEA said the afterburners lit the leaking fuel, the Brits that it was shorts in the wheel bay. Shorts had occurred in the wheel bay at Dulles and subsequent French research concluded that the possibility of that happening again was so remote that it was not worth guarding against, especially since tyre strength was improved. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see why these exotic explanations were arrived at.

One question to which I've never seen the answer:

What was the Regulated TOW on departure? Not the ATOW or structural MTOW, but the performance limited TOW for the conditions of the day including the tailwind?

My feeling is that Marty knowingly began the take-off not only marginally over structural MTOW, but well over RTOW. In other words, he took a gamble with the passenger's lives by operating outside Scheduled Performance rules.

Then the uncommanded shut-down and poor CRM. Sorry, but the total blame lies with Air France culture which led to this risk-taking mentality. If they hadn't gambled on taking-off outside limits, they would never have hit the runway debris.

Mr Beagle - how do you characterise the Contental repair?

In my view equally reckless.

I believe the RTOW was around 180,000.

I don't have a Concorde L&B manual with me, but I'm sure some do.

TODA was 3370m I believe, and 090@8 on RW 26.

Not sure of the temp, but I know the perf calcs were done with wind calm....

I had the honour of knowing Christian Marty personally and did not have him down as a risk taker.
He was a true professional and a credit to AF.
I see nothing to be gained by the impending legalities and would rather offer once again my thoughts to his family, the crew and pax.
May they rest in peace.

My view is that the Concorde was not always operated "by the book" just as - unfortunately - many other airframes. However the safety margins where significantly lower than with "normal" birds. But at the end of the day just with any aircraft accident the holes lined up.

Frankly once they rotated early and shut down #2 their fate was sealed. In retrospect I really see this as one of the most unfortunate accident in recent history. Sure there was some negligence by Conti staff, ADP, Air France, the crew or even the certification authorities but it's really hard to blame anyone to the extent of a judiciary sanction.

Just my 2c

atakacs:
I respectfully disagree. The report has examined the early rotation and indicated that the effect on the accident sequence was immaterial, as was the shutting down, by the requirements in the book, of #2 and which never developed much more than idle thrust post-fire. Their fate was sealed once the fire began. The relevant section of the report is,

, my emphases.

Regarding accidents and your observation,
Not sure how much you know about recent accident history, causal paths, the effects of broad-reaching forces such as airline safety culture (Flt Ops and Maintenance) and human factors but, without denying that this is indeed a terribly tragic accident, it is by no means and no stretch, alone in it's genesis and tragic outcome. Many of us here can cite accident after accident in which the causal pathways were known beforehand and, through the "Normalization of Deviance", were set aside in favour of either politics or commercial interests or combinations of both. This forum is chock-full of such discussions, made all the more disconcerting in the face of introducing SMS - an-essentially self-regulatory safety environment - really, the "de-regulation of safety".

I understand very well, what you're trying to say in empathizing with those affected by this particular tragedy but please keep in mind that there are tens of thousands of others so affected by other, equally, especially tragic outcomes which, but for all factors lining up, were, in hindsight, preventable, and, as I watch data and what is being done with it locally - (ie, nothing), I can see causal pathways developing as we speak and, quite frankly, do not sleep at night.

The work of flight safety today is preventative. Kicking tin, reading DFDRs and listening to last words on CVRs is only designed to prevent the second accident, not the first. With today's capabilities in data analysis, knowledge of human factors and the prohibitive, (perhaps airline-ending) costs of an accident, such an approach is intolerable if not perhaps criminal. Pre-emptive actions on the part of operators is essential in an SMS environment for without it, and with the tendency to reduce hiring standards to staff cockpits around the world, the accident rate is going to rise.

If an operator is in possession of safety data in which the understood causal pathways of an accident such as non-stable approaches, long landings, idle-thrust landings, not following SOPs, are indicating high risk, and that operator does nothing with the data or merely creates the illusion of action when none in fact is taking place, that operator is taking the same risks, though this time, with clear knowledge, as those who normalized deviance with various aspects of the Concorde operation. Because of all this, it is important to comprehend that the Concorde accident is in many ways, "not special". Now please, I do NOT mean this to sound callous nor do I dismiss this tragedy as nothing special, but mean that the factors which put this beautiful airplane with it's passengers in harm's way are not unique to Concorde.

So that would put them 5-6 tonnes outside performance limits.

When told the wind was not calm, but was an 8 knot tailwind, and knowing that they'd only used 800 kg of the 2000 kg assumed for taxying, why did none of the crew query the performance issue?

I think you'll find that BA certainly always operated Concorde by the book!

If I were you I wouldn't be so proud because even if BA operated the plane as in the books, it's still a shame as an operator to fly that aircraft knowing all the preceding tyres' issues without initiating any correction. The continental piece, the missing boogie part, the tail wind (which in fact was calm on the contrary of what the ATC announced, read the report), the 6 t overweight are ALL contributing factors to the accident, BUT concorde didn't need all theses factors in the dozens of preceding incidents related to tyre bursts (with some fuel tank perforations). This mean the aircraft had a latent problem which neither the designers nor the operators decided to solve over 20 years.
There is nothing to be proud about operating an aircraft in these conditions, even if it is as in the books.

By the way, thanks for blaming and naming a dead colleague.

The aviation safety database lists 65 BA incidents since 1978, all but eight of which were Concorde incidents. This includes such gems as "No. 4 tyre burst due to FOD; damage to wheels no. 7 and 8 and engines no. 3 and 4." (An entry from 1979.)

Most of the others are related to tyre failures, with occasional bits dropping off in flight and the odd engine hiccup.

PJ2 thank you for your posts, very informative.

2 remarks :

1- from an ATC point of view , as Heathrow Director already pointed out, it is not a requirement in any place that I know of to visually inspect the runway before every departure. You have to do so at prescribed intervals, and/or after a FO is reported by someone or is suspected to be in there. Nothing more.

2-Re The Continental "strip" : I have heard ( rumour) that the French Prosecutor was shown a series of photos showing part of the engine cowling that the " strip" was supposed to cover, and that those photos implied a certain degree of negligence over a long period of time on the maintenance part of that aircraft..
The next argument is that should the part had been the original one ( in Aluminum ?) it could have been run over more safely. The non-standard part was in Titanium ( much harder) and was prone to be lost over time as it could not be attached properly because the cowling had a dozen or so holes from earlier attempts to attach similar strips .
The next argument is that other previous strips must have detached before and Continental maintenance must have known about the danger.

I do not think the judge will say that the Continental strip is the main cause of the accident but he might give a certain percentage of responsibility (i.e part of the damage claims ) to Continental insurance company...

1/ Those canisters in the aircraft that hold fuel are called "fuel tanks". a "Fuel Cell" is a hydrogen/oxygen-fueled cell that provides electric power. Concorde has no fuel cells.

My racecar, a Porsche 911, has a "fuel cell." I has nothing to do with hydrogen being consumed to create electricity. It is what in the racing business is universally called a "fuel cell"--an aluminum gasoline tank filled with an absorbent medium that largely encapsulates the gas in the case of a crash. All serious racecars have fuel cells.

When this story was first reported, the brief radio commentary I heard about this had two points:

1) The piece that fell off was "supposed" to be aluminum (aluminium), but was actually titanium, which being a sturdier metal caused the tire puncture.

2) The pilot is ultimately responsible for a safe flight, so should not have taken off under unsafe conditions.
---------
Hard to argue with the simple logic behind the second point. The plane crashed, so it clearly wasn't a safe flight and thus was the pilot's "responsibility" (fault.) Beyond the death penalty handed out at the time, it's difficult to see where else to take it. :(

I suppose they expect every pilot to make a full inspection of the runway before takeoff. The reduction in traffic should make ATC's job much easier. :ugh:

Note, I'm criticizing the radio jockey's comments rather than the merits of the case.

The runway inspection has nothing to do with this issue.
A safe aircraft is supposed to be able to suffer a tyre loss without causing fuel tank perforation, fire, and loss of control.

Concorde used to blow its tyres even without continental's help, and this for years, without any action of the manufacturer or the operators (AF & BA). This accident is an opportunity to put into the light some serious lacks in Air France procedures, maintenance as for Continental, but this is NOT the fundamental cause of the accident. To my opinion, AF & BA holds the main responsibility in exposing for so many years the passengers to such well known risks without taking any action. It is absolutely silly to pretend BA operated safer flights than AF, the main issue was a design issue absolutely known by both operators. In any circumstances they should have tolerated to operate an aircraft with such high risks.

Here

One ton seems rather a lot for 'production variations' + Mods. No?