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?

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.)

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....

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.

Just let them rest in peace.AMEN.


M.85

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.

Crash Concorde 'almost killed Chirac'
 

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

A question from a non-pilot


Rwy in Sight

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.

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........

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.

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.

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

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!

Um, very interesting but highly academic surely.

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

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

It had been said before....
 

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.