Concorde documentary
 

Concorde documentary just finished - not bad, nothing we didn't already know (or think we know), but anyone know why it ran nearly 15 minutes under its scheduled time? Was anything pulled at the 'last minute'?

By trying to cover so many aspects of the background to the entire Concorde project, as well as focusing on the aftermath effects upon those who either lost members of their families or were directly affected by the accident, I feel that the programme lacked sufficient time to give adequate treatment to the accident itself. There was a good deal of speculation about the rights and wrongs of BA continuing commercial Concorde operation after the accident, but apart from John Hutchinson's clear statements about the potential effect of the missing undercarriage spacer, very little mention was given to the overweight take-off and the No 2 engine shutdown. No mention at all of the recent facts concerning the validity of the FO's licence, nor of the effect of this upon the aircraft's certification.
No - this was rather a lightweight effort by the BBC; John Hutchinson took great pains to avoid direct criticism of the crew and drew all his explanations from the facts presented in the interim reports whereas Christian Paris the Air France pilot saw fit only to accuse John of being 'in love' with the aircraft and contributed nothing but an air of condescension. Without wishing to appear Francophobic, I have to say that it was M Paris who was the emotional and vague commentator and Capt Hutchinson who was the clear analyst.

[ 06 September 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]

JT

It ran to schedule according to my TV guide???

Evo

Evo7,

Indeed - I just checked the BBC web-site for their schedule. Seems my TV guide gave erroneous times from 21:00 to 22:00. But I won't pull the posting or it will kill the entire thread.

JT

Wouldn't expect you to pull it (although Danny might :) ). Interesting programme worthy of discussion. Just don't know enough personally to add much that hasn't been said here before.

I respect Johns conclusions & judgement,
he is a well balanced chap who presents
the facts in a human way.

It seems it was a terrible run of
events with an awful result,
deepest respects to all lost in the accident.

I found the TV programme rather disappointing. As Beagle has so eruditely pointed out some of the facts which are in the public domain were hardly touched on.

I hope that Captain Hutchinson will publish his own findings at some date in the future.

Anyone got a contact number or E-address for John H?

It tantalisingly raised the question of why did the plane crash and then ignored it. Somewhat frustrating.

Has anyone seen any reports of simulations of the flight? Why once it was airborne did it lose control in such a sudden and spectacular fashion?

Its difficult to report and cover everything in the time allowed during the documentary.
Capt. Hutchinson's posistion clearly differs from the M. Paris.

Its a tough call...

I have a question though:
Is it possible to rig up a concorde simulator with the same parameters -as far as we know, to see if this situation was survivable as Capt. Hutchinson seemed to suggest?

Typical modern touchy feely 'human interest' documentary.

High on doom-laden organ music and teary hand-wringing but low on fact.

Frustrating waste of a chance to investigate the causes.

Arkroyal

My views exactly

Full marks though for a valiant solo effort by John Hutchinson to try and ventilate the issues still hanging around.

For anyone who missed it, John Hutchinson's conclusions were published in the Observer a few weeks back. It may still be on the web.

I too found the programme rather disappointing. Does anybody REALLY know the cause?

Assuming that the return of the CofA means that the investigators are satisfied that they know what happened and how to prevent it, when should we expect the BEA to publish a definitive report?

Anyone know anything?

The fact that the FO's medical had expired and obviously invalidated the aircrafts CofA has little or no bearing on the crash. If he had suffered a major medical incident at the time when everything was going wrong then it would have been different. The BBC lawyers probably had to ensure that nothing libelous was said ahead of the publication of the offical report. The facts presented by Capt H. are pretty much in the public domain - missing spacer, 1.5 tons of taxi fuel still on-board, unrecorded bags, etc.

CCAero - We will have to wait for the official report before we know the answer to your question.

[ 07 September 2001: Message edited by: Gaza ]

Enjoyed the docu . I think it probably held the interest of the viewer throughout, which would be one of the objectives of the producers.Agree with other posts that it did not shed much new light on the causes , but then it's a legal minefield out there for anyone speculating . I thought JH was doing fine until he came up with the proposition about the fire going out ,like ,of it's own accord .What did he mean by this?. Did not come across to me as plausable and did tend to undermine the rest of his case.

I think he meant that the fuel was exiting at such a rate that the tank would have emptied itself before long.

For the regular viewer - at whom it would have been aimed - I think they did OK.

For those of us that have followed the story and take a closer interest, it was never going to be much more than background.

The one point that I would have liked to have been made is that, no other commercial aircraft has had a fleet grounded, following a single fatal crash. If the point had been put in proper context, it would show that the authorities are reacting differently to Concorde's crash than to any other.

New Bloke - all the fuel tanks on each side feed into each other - it would have burnt for a long time with a flow of 65 litres per second..