"But we need guarantees that such a chain of events cannot happen again."īut aviation experts have said commercial considerations may well rule that out.ġ3.58 Crew contacts control tower to plan pre-flight sequence.ġ4.07 Controller gives permission to start, confirms runway 26 right as requested by crew.ġ4.34 Ground controller gives the plane permission to taxi toward the runway.ġ4.42 and 17 seconds Controller. "I am not saying it is over with Concorde," he said. The final report may not appear for several months.Įarlier this week the transport minister, Jean-Claude Gayssot, held out hope that the planes might fly again. The report does not contain any analysis or final conclusions about the cause of the disaster, and notes that the sequence of damage and the links between the various events have "not yet been fully established". However, a blow-out of this kind has never before led to a fuel fire." Stressing that the catastrophe could have happened at any time, the investigators say:"Experience in service has shown that a tyre blow-out during taxiing, landing and take-off is not an improbable event on Concorde and that such an event is indeed capable of causing structural and system damage. 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. Over the 25 years Concorde has been in commercial operation, there have been at least seven potentially catastrophic incidents in which one or more of its tyres have burst, leading to punctures in the wings or fuel tanks.īut 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. The report formally recommends that Concorde's airworthiness certificates should be suspended until "appropriate measures have been put in place to guarantee a satisfactory level of safety as regards the risk associated with tyre blow-outs" - a step the civil aviation authority and its French equivalent, the DGAC, carried out on August 16. The aircraft flew for approximately one minute." Engine problems occurred in engine number 2 and, briefly, in engine number 1. "The leaking fuel caught light and a very violent fire ensued throughout the duration of the flight. "At least one fuel tank was ruptured in one or more places, resulting in a substantial fuel leak. "Shortly before rotation, the front right tyre of the left undercarriage became damaged and tyre fragments were projected against the fuselage," the interim report, released on the internet, says. The BEA said last month that the 40cm piece of metal almost certainly gashed the Concorde's tyre, sending large chunks of rubber hurtling at tremendous speed into the plane's fuel tanks, which are contained in its delta-shaped wings, and starting the blaze. Cherry is a type of rivet not used on Concorde. This strip has not been identified as coming from Concorde," the report says. "It has holes in it and in some of these holes appear to be Cherry aeronautical rivets. It also confirms that a small metal strip, probably from another airplane, was found on the runway. "The crew had no way of knowing about the nature of the fire nor any means of fighting it." "The July 25 accident shows that the destruction of a tyre, an event that we cannot say will not recur, had catastrophic consequences in a short period of time, preventing the crew from rectifying the situation," the report says. The investigators from the French accident inquiry board (BEA) confirms the hypothesis that a burst tyre set off the fatal chain of events which brought the plane down, killing all those on board and another four people on the ground. The 90-page, highly technical report contains little new information on the crash, which prompted Air France to ground its remaining Concordes immediately and British Airways, the only other airline to fly the ageing supersonic jet, to follow suit nearly three weeks later. We will try to pick ourselves up and recommence take-offs." A minute later air traffic control announced: "To all listening aircraft, please hold back a moment. Negative we are trying Le Bourget." Sixteen seconds later the recording ends.Īt 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. no time." The co-pilot was then heard to say: "Le Bourget, Le Bourget. Marty's last words, at a few seconds after 2.44pm on July 25, were: "Too late. 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.
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