Emergency. But they would have had power for a few more seconds. But the CIA needed to discredit the scores of eyewitnesses who saw a rising missile. When it stood at the end of the runway, ready to roll, it was more than six tonnes over its approved maximum takeoff weight for the given conditions, with its centre of gravity pushed dangerously far to the rear. The doomed plane’s centre of gravity went beyond 54 per cent. And I take offense to your claiming “It almost always is.” Sometimes, yes. Terrific story, very revealing and, though clear, filled with relevant detail. These marginal circumstances combined with the possible instability and drag induced by the missing spacer may have slowed lift-off, although this is not the BEA view. By the day of the crash, it had moved about seven inches, until the two washers were almost touching. All the best! To keep straight a small (2◦) angle of bank is required – lowering the wing with the working engines. 14.43.32 - Mechanic: "The gear; (alarm, similar to toilet smoke alert). That is a quick way to lose a job. More important is the light this throws on the French approach to the investigation of air accidents. I can only assume C5’s legal team passed it. Le Bourget (Paris Aéroport) was established in 1914. This tells me their breifing was routine and their minds were somewhere else. The selective way of choosing whatever suits one’s own agenda as belonging in the “conspiracy theory” category or not, is in itself laughable. Until then the number one engine had been functioning almost normally but when the plane hit the landing light it ingested hard material which caused it to surge and fail. How many people would have died if the plane went off the runway and went through houses and buildings? I was privileged, using frequent flyer miles, to fly 4 times on this aircraft (since I could never have afforded to do so using real money). Concorde was the last aeroplane in BA service to carry a Flight Engineer, so the retirement of Concorde meant and end to the Flight Engineer in British Airways. Did national prestige affect the decision not to modify the wings because in so doing it may have dealt a terminal blow to the commercial viability of what was already a loss maker. >> Patrick, you wrote that the fire “likely would have burned itself out in a matter of a few minutes”. Air France flight 4590, flight of a Concorde supersonic airplane that crashed in Gonesse, a suburb of Paris, on July 25, 2000. Can you comment? “The aviation safety community is going to view this verdict with great deal of relief,” said William R. Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, speaking in the Times article. The engine itself was not on fire, and as the tank emptied and the fire burnt itself out, it would probably have recovered. How do you know this would be likely? 14.44.05 - Controller: "Fire service leader, uh ... the Concorde, I don't know its intentions, get yourself in position near the south doublet; (sound of switch). […] You’ll find a post on Patrick Smith’s “Ask the Pilot” if you click here. 14.44.03 - Fire service leader: "De Gaulle tower from fire service leader.". According to Jack Lowe, a Concorde pilot, up until the crash of Air France Flight 4590 at Paris, the British Airways Concorde operation made a net average profit of about £30m a year. (We were in Rome, Italy before flew back to Paris and stayed at this hotel.) That was the start of a downward spiral from which the Tu-144 never recovered. When Marty paused at the start of the runway, his instruments told him that his Concorde had 1.2 tonnes of extra fuel which should have been burnt during the taxi. Kennedy’s motorcade was not scheduled to turn and pass the Texas Schoolbook Repository. The Paris crash delayed the Soviet program by four years, allowing Concorde to enter service first. "The crew had no way of knowing about the nature of the fire nor any means of fighting it.". Yeah. As the plane left the ground at Charles de … In its interim report, and in a statement, the BEA said that the leftwards yaw was caused not by the faulty landing gear but by “the loss of thrust from engines one and two”. Even recently, when I found out about it, it was saddening. Unfortunately, too many other issues can cause a pilot to make an unwise decision. TOW beyond limits, CG beyond limits, tailwind, landing gear out of order, obviously something wrong with the airport operations (hence the close encounter with the 747); this all sounds like the perfect mixture for a disaster to me. The BEA contests these findings, saying that the acceleration was normal until the tyre burst. The speech is forthright and damning of Air France and also the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), the agency of the French government responsible for investigating aviation accidents and incidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. For those of us that flew the 747, we realised how a hydraulic system should be built but it was a much later design and weight was not the same problem. It is a real thrill to make the mistake of landing or taking off with only a few knots of wind. Her comments drew me to refresh my recollections of the original accident report and subsequent disagreements with the conclusions. (Apparently, the runway was not smoothly surfaced over its whole length, but nobody usually used the bit beyond the “step” – except, fatally, Concorde on this particular day.) Concorde had at least one undiscovered in-wing fire due to fuel tank leakage into the wing. The show gives the findings of the investigations into each accident.750. According to the television program, Seconds from Disaster, the fire was intense enough to begin to melt the wing structure and cause a loss of controlability. So sad. ``TOO LATE . "At least one fuel tank was ruptured in one or more places, resulting in a substantial fuel leak. I am a retired aircraft maintenance engineer who held licenses in the UK, Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and The Bahamas as well an AP Mechanic with TWA. When the plane left the hangar on 21 July, the spacer was missing. But I would characterize survivability as “possible”, not “very likely”, given the catastrophic nature of such accidents, in which so much of the outcome is due to chance. Bucklebury deaths: Former Concorde pilot and wife found dead. Makes one whale of a difference! Witness reports have cast doubt on the official account into the Concorde crash that killed 113 people, according to lawyers for Continental Airlines, the US carrier accused of causing the accident. Mick, first, normally, incidents occour before an accident happens.The reasons for the many tire bursts were because they continuously used re-tread tyres. And I tip my hat to both the present Airbus engineers and their sales/marketing women and men of today! All agree, in John Hutchinson’s words, “It’s no big deal at all. Why has an independent agency not been involved to uncover the truth with out any thing to loose or gain from the outcome of this investigation??? “Moderator” Patrick: With these words, supersonic test pilot Brian Trubshaw opened his autobiography. On the off chance that this is valid, the harmed wing may have made the flying machine unflyable before the fire consumed itself out. Second – Concorde’s port wing was the one that caught fire, but the strip was found on the *right-hand* side of the runway. Or three, would have remained embedded into rubber if it had / could have penetrated. Accident investigation. It seemed as though the Concorde operators were desperate to avoid USA FAA and NTSB investigations into how they were doing Concorde takeoff computations and Concorde maintenance. But very likely had absolutely nothing to do with any other, “errant piece of metal,” than the missing spacer! You have flames behind you," the control tower said. The SST program should never have been comprised. But in all those incidents it was a piece of flying metal - from the undercarriage or water deflectors - that caused the damage, not tyre rubber itself. Flight 148 Air Inter January 20 th :1992 crashed in control on Mont St Odile Alsace France in heavy winter weather. A new book, "Concorde: The Inside Story" by longtime pilot Brian Trubshaw, talks about his history with the plane. I flew as a Cabin Service Director on Concorde for 6 years and will never forget my experience. How would you explain this whole incident if that one piece of information was gone? 14.34 Ground controller gives the plane permission to taxi toward the runway. The time and distance to Gonesse, where the airplane fell, was less than a go-around. Why JFK but not 9/11? Elizabethbury50. Agence France-Presse. Air France Im afraid haven’t quite got a fantastic safety record, have they?? CRM (Human Factors) is a damned good tool for getting crew members to work together. Why it was skidding has been the subject of contention, but as we’ll see in a minute, many believe the skid was caused by an improperly repaired landing gear. I always wanted to fly aboard one of these grand birds and see the curve of the earth and the blue sky turn dark. “Sit on your hands” until you reach a certain altitude! "It has holes in it and in some of these holes appear to be Cherry aeronautical rivets. Thank you for an excellent article and comments. Nigel’s and Richard’s responses are the only ones to acknowledge here and certainly not those of a journalist asking questions of so-called experts. Accident investigations are rarely as transparent and impartial as the authorities would have us believe, in my opinion. Grrroowwwwll….Marum. The BEA’s critics say that once the tyre burst, the load on the three remaining tyres became uneven, and even if the wheels had been more or less straight before, they now twisted disastrously to the side. Tank 5 was full of fuel because the normal refuelling protections had been overridden and, furthermore & contrary to correct procedure, fuel was being pumped forward from tank 11 during the takeoff run. Sadly, there was much to learn from this tragedy and in the end the fleet was grounded. There was something retarding the aircraft, holding it back.” Chauve and Suaud’s report contains detailed calculations which conclude that without this retardation, the plane would have taken off 1,694 metres from the start of the runway — before reaching the fateful metal strip. The aircraft flew for approximately one minute.". Having heard John Hutchinson speak and in a such an authoritative yet not as a Headmaster manor was probably the best I have heard when John spoke through a very heavy cold at a lunch of what were engineers admittedly not flight engineers but with an appreciation of the immense technological requirements needed to be Concord crew. Safety efforts were therefore concentrated on strengthening all the metal parts that could be broken off in a tyre burst, but not on protecting the wings themselves. Hi Mal – I saw a French documentary about the crash (Concorde – Le Crash D’Un Mythe) which raised several issues concerning the strip. I cannot imagine how dreadful an experience it was for the passengers and crew. I was reading through some old posts, just for fun, when I spotted an error that I missed the first time through. It’s pretty horrible to imagine what it must have been like for the passengers involved. With hindsight as we know that there was no engine fire, it would have been better to not have shut the engine down, but the crew didnt know that, there was a clear fire warning and the fire was burning throughout the brief flight. Moreover, the report notes that Concorde was designed with allowable fuel leaks and seepages specific to tank location, up to 14 drops-per-minute for some areas without immediate repair. As has been written by many others in the comments section below dredging up the hearsay that did not find its way into the final legally issued report from the BEA is pointless. My one dream in life was to fly on the Concorde and that dream was destroyed when they were retired. Should of, Could of, Would of does nothing to bring these poor souls back or honor their memories. The article asks “experts” if the concorde is controllable with an engine failure on the runway, to which the answer is yes. There are other choices, a different configuration of flap, a different (possibly longer) runway, offloading baggage or fuel or both. There have been serious discussions and arguments about payload or fuel but never considerations of overweight take offs. You’re not using anything like the full amount of rudder to keep the plane straight; the yaw is totally containable.”. Sadly Concord died in a tragic accident, whereas the real blame for commercial its demise lies elsewhere. As is often the case, that explanation is likely to be embarrassing to at least some of the parties involved from the operator, AMO, manufacturer to the regulators. British Airways | Executive Club - Retired BA Concorde pilot speaks out on the cause of the AF4590 disaster - Originally Posted by PUCCI GALORE Maybe I am missing something. Sir, (without prejudice) On Concorde the runway cannot be seen once 13 degrees of pitch is achieved. lovely to see that self obsessed americans still can’t get over the fact that the Europeans succeeded ( concorde ) where they were non starters… keep harping on that incident to prove it. 14.07 Controller gives permission to start, confirms runway 26 right as requested by crew. etc…, Unless there is a re-opening of the official enquiry I would suggest the doom and gloom mongerers and finger pointers go and turn their attention to something more useful. My heart goes out to the victims of this accident, many of them children. Anyone confirm this? Unfortunately, this shows how people may react when human errors (either caused by themselves or others) collectively incite a terrible incident like this. I’m not qualified to comment on the technical details beyond ‘they ring true’ but I much enjoyed the read. When Air France took off that fateful day, why couldn’t the pilot go round and try and land on the one engine? I’m really not sure that is correct. A beautiful piece of writing describing a complex set of events, and very compelling evidence that politics was at play in the official enquiry. Les contrôleurs avaient l’habitude de réserver un traitement très particulier pour cet avion pas comme les autres. Another in the tragedy of errors: Brian Trubshaw and John Cochrane, Concorde’s two test pilots when the aircraft was being developed in the early 1970s, set the aft operating limit at 54 per cent — beyond that, they found, it risked becoming uncontrollable, likely to rear up backwards and crash, exactly as Flight 4590 did in its final moments over Gonesse. . Also, Henri Perrier Chief of Concorde Flight Test (and layer Airbus) from well before the first flight of 001 was also accused and sentenced, but sadly died last year aged 83 after 10 years of bravely borne stress. Why do airlines always lie? I remember reading in Flight International magazine, in the early days of Concorde, that a wealthy older woman booked a Concorde trip, curious what all the fuss surrounding this exotic new plane was about. About a 3 kg difference for each gallon, I’d think. Although not the only factor the FACT that there was not a recalculation of the aircraft’s ATOW/RTOW following the change of wind direction was unfortunately all too grave. Misdirection is an art. Much appreciation for the great and masterful article. The flight was doomed the moment the captain attempted a tail wind takeoff. Is it possible that he didn’t hear the notice that he’d be departing with a tailwind? I have always been certain that the decision to end the reign of Concorde was neither a financial one nor a safety one. It was intended to be a commercial success. Similarly, TWA might still be in service if blame had been properly placed on the missile that brought down TWA800 off Long Island, New York on July 17, 1996. On a twin engined airliner V1 is usually at Vr. He went on to become Concorde’s first test pilot as well as the company director of flight testing. The Tu-144 was the world's first commercial supersonic transport aircraft with its prototype's maiden flight from Zhukovsky Airport on 31 December 1968, two months before the British-French Concorde. The article suggests the flight engineer shut down engine 2 without the captains knowledge and too early, whereas the accident report shows that the Capt was involved in the decision and that the engine fire warning was only silenced momentarily after shutting down the engine, probably by the fire extinguishers cooling the area near to the fire detector briefly. The truth is that Air France was totally to blame. The tailwind meant that Concorde’s runway-allowable takeoff weight was just 180 tonnes — at least six tonnes less than the weight of Flight 4590. Marty was a well liked pilot by all accounts. The RAES lecture by Concorde pilot John Hutchinson this week was fascinating and astonishing. 14.43.35 - Mechanic: "The gear, no; (Gong). 14.43.56 - Co-pilot: "The gear won't come up; (fire alarm rings). It was a tragic accident. I agree. ALWAYS has the final word. Very interesting for me to see that this is becoming a live issue once again; I have been banging on about it for years. With these words, supersonic test pilot Brian Trubshaw opened his autobiography, published Wednesday, ironically just one day after an Air France Concorde crashed in … Why did they not redesign and install a solid and strong protection to prevent 100% any cut in the tank, should any tyre burst.And on top,also reenforce the rubber tank skin. Drop a note if you can, or give me a call (in California) at 707 939 1216). From other local news sites. Personalities should not be protected. There’s no certification requirement for successful second segment climb with loss of 50% thrust. The fuel leak was from the wing ahead of the engine intakes. The final terrifying moments of Air France flight 4590 were revealed yesterday when French accident investigators released their preliminary report on last month's Concorde crash outside Paris, in which 113 people died. But some believe the supersonic jet's reputation never recovered, and the last Concorde … In September 2000, the French Air Accident Investigation Bureau published a transcript of a tape recording the last words spoken between Air France's 4590 Concorde … When events like this occur, it’s not time for finger-pointing, but a time to learn from mistakes, focusing on the families and the loss of lives, and making long term improvements so things like this don’t happen again. The stresses on Concorde’s landing gear are unusually severe. This fact was told to us by the commentary pilot on our Biscay flight on 12th March and proves that just 4 months before the crash the Concorde fleet was economically if not viable then at least acceptable. Boeing provided the numbers for TWA800. As we learned at Safety School in the Navy, every accident has many links in the chain of events which are all contributing factors. We can have little confidence that this has not been so in other French air accident investigations. About 30 years ago I flew with an F/E on the “Rope Start” 747s who had unusually long arms and loved to reach and do things very quickly. The Concorde was a failure. The plane went down not because of any fire, directly, but because 1., it was flying too slowly; 2., it was several tons overweight and beyond its aft center of gravity limit; 3., two of its four engines were damaged or erroneously shut down. This website has a good article and alot of content.thanks alot god blessed.Phatt Program. It shows that the crew, who were unable to retract the undercarriage, had lost all power in one engine and could neither accelerate nor gain altitude, tried desperately to reach Le Bourget airport, nearby. The aircraft wasnt overweight when the take-off calculations were done by the crew (if I read the full article correctly) What had changed was the surface wind, such that if the calculations had been done again it may have been six tonnes overweight. The automobile equivalent of the Concorde. WRT comments about the flames not causing structural damage, being aft of the craft or likely to burn out soon… No mention in this summary of the Fire Service evidence offered at enquiry that fire personnel, from their mid airport location, nearest the active runway, noted flames from Concorde approximately one kilometre before the Continental Airline’s lost metal strip would have been encountered on the runway. Even if this is the case, it might not have any effect on the aircraft taking off, the limiting factor may well be stopping the aircraft within the available runway after an engine failure just before V1. pnuthanndanh Concorde crash of air France in Gonesse France on July 25th 2000. 14.43.22 - Unidentified voice on radio: "It's burning badly, huh; (Gong). Such a terrible tragedy! The pilot pointed the nose towards the ground to get the airspeed needed to restart the engines in the air. The resulting Russian version, to my untrained eye, looked identical to the Concorde. All the while, the plane was an estimated six tons above its maximum allowable weight based on wind conditions at the time of the crash. ", 14.44.19 - Pilot: "No time, no (unclear).". LJWorld The crash occured shortly after take off. This included performance – range – weight and centre of gravity. Well, you know what wise people say. Then BA ran it at a profit until the crash and grounding. They have spent the past six months preparing a 60-page report on the crash. But it again begs the question, why are governments so quick to lay blame rather than waiting for evidence? At 14.45 the control tower informed the fire and emergency services that the flight, carrying 100 mainly German passengers and nine crew, had crashed near Le Bourget. All along, conventional wisdom, bolstered by lethargic media coverage, has held that the fuel tank fire was the direct cause of the crash. My route to boarding the van went right through their hangar, and on one occasion the Concorde was there. Excellent insight. Succinct and covers the assailant points without photos. 2. consider information provided as pieces of a carefully crafted plan to send you in a direction. 14.44 - Co-pilot: "The airspeed indicator.". But he had no choice: the plane was about to leave the tarmac altogether and plough into the soft and bumpy grass at its side. CRM was poorly explained to this Pilots. Your comment is what’s laughable. The consequential scrubbing as the tires tracked to the left destroyed at least one of them, stripped its treads and caused much of it to be flung against the underside of the wing with sufficient force to penetrate it — and the fuel tank within. RIP the passengers, and prayers to the families. It also confirms that a small metal strip, probably from another airplane, was found on the runway. The Concorde fleet was grounded after the crash, but started to fly again 15 months after the crash. It may cost a lot to retrofit wing tanks but what if the alternative is to admit that the landing gear failed? I believe the pilot quickly realised the chain of events about to kill him. Most jets can use an active runway with up to 10 knows tailwind depending on the aircraft runway needs and runway conditions and this depends on the WAT (weight, altitude, temperature) limit. ", - Stephen Dubner, Coauthor of Freakonomics. What if there was no metal strip on the end of the runway? Metal strip 1, Concorde 0. The Tupolev design bureau was unable to duplicate the complex shape of the Concorde wings in the TU-144 “Concordski,” despite having a set of purloined plans. How do you know this would be likely? If not, the 747 lay straight ahead. As the plane taxied to the start of the runway, there was nothing to keep the front wheels of the undercarriage in line with the back. Once again we learn accidents are caused by several factors, instead of just one major event! They made heavy profits in the final months with almost all the flights fully booked. A cut in the tread of the tire that fragmented matches the shape of the metal patch piece. With that piece of information (fact) missing, how do I now explain this incident. Could this have been a trail of fuel venting from the orifice under the fin on the port side of Concorde. All the Concordes have gone long ago. PARIS -- The first word that something had gone terribly wrong with the Concorde came from the control tower when the plane was in the air, according to a preliminary report made public yesterday by investigators probing the fiery crash. Again: What a poor solution. Thank you for this informative piece. The accident report also clearly show the aircraft tracking straight up until after the tyre burst and shows more left rudder input required rather than right rudder to keep it straight- showing that the missing spacer had no effect on the aircraft’s directional control. Patrick, you wrote that the fire “likely would have burned itself out in a matter of a few minutes”. 10:06. National pride ….. not unlike launching a space shuttle when the temperature is below minimum operating temperature for the O-rings. Captains like John It reads like one of the parables from Gann’s “Fate is the Hunter”, One person is blaming the pilots for being over confident , but that is not so there is no point in blaming someone that’s dead and didn’t know his plane was on fire. It’s easy…, @eigenzeitt “I have punctured many tyres with a tiny screwdriver…”. As the consequence of its port undercarriage running over runway lights, one of the engines ingested foreign matter and was substantially damaged. The investigation by The Observer suggests the truth may not only be more complicated, but also sadder, more sordid. Interestingly the difference also partly led to the Concorde crash too. A disgraceful end to a highly distinguished career. As for safety, the crash would have been the perfect excuse to end them but no, all wings were lined at vast expense, and I’m sure a lot more safety updated or at least re-eveluated. First, as the BEA’s own published data reveals, the thrust from engine one was almost normal until the end of the skid, when it took in the parts of the landing light. The most likely cause would be rubber from the burst tyre getting launched upwards into the landing gear where it cuts some of the power cables responsible for raising the gear. Is it possible that he was fully aware of both the tailwind and the overweight situation and decided to go ahead with the departure regardless, either because of schedule pressures (ie the 45 minute delay) or simply due to the confidence he had in Concorde? If the BEA has chosen not to look at the explanation given in the story, what other omissions are there? In addition, below, is a version that I have edited and condensed for clarity…. Thank you! . Anyhow they re-boarded the flight about 3 hours later and on they went. But by lumping them all together, the whole idea of an alternate explanation gets trashed. A littany of mistakes happenend that day and from what I have read that continued with BEA approach to vision worthy of Nelson. This accident is an outstanding example of something we’ve seen time and time again in airplane crashes: multiple errors, none of them necessarily fatal on their own accord, combining and compounding at the worst possible moment to precipitate a catastrophe. An investigation by The Observer suggests the truth is much more complicated. Total time CDG-NYC was again 6-7 hours but at a cost of about 5 times a regular air ticket…. It was a BA engineering team that saw the first implications of this discovery at the Crash Hangar. Except that it wasn’t. Gases from the engines then ignited leaking fuel, touching off a huge fire. )to match it but never could make any profit from it either. In the middle is a low-friction pivot which connects the beam to the vertical leg extending down from inside the wing. I’m afraid that the nose was not a French design. The Concorde dead comprised all 100 passengers -- 96 Germans, two Danes, an American and an Austrian -- and the nine French crew members. In the 50’s and in the 60’s, the aircraft drama were many and they did not stop the aviation industry. The AF Board are responsible for the safe operation of their airline, they have to accept responsibility for this and should be judged accordingly. It is something not taught,but gained by Experience. This would have been easily covered if you knew exactly what the ATC delays for each departure would be. The local noise regulations were not too strict then and the crew could use full re-heat for a lot longer than at almost any other airport! That plane was going 220 miles an hour when the tire blew. So the CIA hypothesized a noseless B747 climbing from 13,800 feet to 17,000 feet trailing flames. A United States Air Force pilot died yesterday after a U2 "spy plane" crashed as it took off from Gloucestershire on what was believed to be a reconnaissance mission to Bosnia. Thank you for posting this article. Concorde was repaired and modified to fly again. ", 14:44.14 - Co-pilot: "Le Bourget, Le Bourget. There would have been fatalities, I’d wager, but it’s very likely there would have been survivors also, provided the crash trucks were ready and IMMEDIATELY began dousing the blaze. Concorde did make a profit, for BA. Details are emerging concerning the crash of Air France Concorde Flight AF 4590 on Tuesday afternoon. Finger pointing does not serve any purpose now. the death of Diana Princess of Wales Why didn’t the control tower operator turn up for his shift?? "Other pilots said I was mad to swap being pilot-in-command for a job as co-pilot but to me it was the start of 6 years of pure joy. (Usually 400′ AGL for most multi engine commercial jets.)