Author Topic: Concorde Accident: Continental's Fault? (Read 1941 times)

NUKE · « **Reply #15 on:** December 14, 2004, 03:28:33 PM »

All I am saying is that a tire blowout brought the plane down. Concord knew the plane was vulnerable to tires entering the wing and fuel tanks and did nothing to fix it.

Curval · « **Reply #16 on:** December 14, 2004, 03:30:37 PM »

Concord shares in the blame then, but having bits of one's jet fall off on takeoff also seems pretty darn negligent too, wouldn't you say?

Pongo · « **Reply #17 on:** December 14, 2004, 03:43:30 PM »

Airports run 24/7. Do you want FOD radar on a 10000 acre airport or somthing?

If there is an civil aircraft design principle that dictates that likely to fall off pieces must be made of a material with certain(malable) qualities then Continental and the part maker are in trouble.
If there is not then they are not.

IE if airliner tires are designed to withstand X kind of obstruction to be certified and Airliners are designed to only drop X kind of obstruction to be certified then there is an issue.

We dont have to guess that there is a design prinicple that a blown tire should not engulf an aircraft in a fire ball..

Sure seems like a cop out though.

indy007 · « **Reply #18 on:** December 14, 2004, 03:45:45 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Curval
Concord shares in the blame then, but having bits of one's jet fall off on takeoff also seems pretty darn negligent too, wouldn't you say?

Sounds right, but we're down to degrees of guilt at this point. What's a greater problem? A company intentionally ignoring a problem until after the fleet is grounded, or, a 17" piece of metal falling off a plane.

"Well, our plane wouldn't have crashed had you used aluminum instead of titanium during maintenance!"

"Your plane wouldn't have crashed had you fixed the problem in 1979!"

"Yeah! Well... had you used the right part, we wouldn't have had to fix our problem!"

"Right. Well, had you fixed the problem, we could've gotten away with using the wrong part!"

You can go in circles for hours.

I think Continental should be liable, but Aerospatiale & the BEA should be paying the bulk of the damages. They let the problem go for quite a long time.

ASTAC · « **Reply #19 on:** December 14, 2004, 03:52:58 PM »

Whole thing sounds like another jab at the USA by the French.

Otto · « **Reply #20 on:** December 14, 2004, 04:07:45 PM »

Continental's response...:

http://money.cnn.com/services/tickerheadlines/for5/200412081403DOWJONESDJONLINE000953_FORTUNE5.htm

Pongo · « **Reply #21 on:** December 14, 2004, 04:16:27 PM »

How many people would have paid 10000 dollars for a plane ticket knowing that the thing could explode from a blown tire?

ASTAC · « **Reply #22 on:** December 14, 2004, 04:20:16 PM »

Just a bunch of dead rich folks...who need em? " Look at me..I can afford to fly the Concorde..I'll be home ***** my secretary behind my wifes back while you are still over the atlantic sitting in coach".

Dinger · « **Reply #23 on:** December 14, 2004, 04:21:22 PM »

First, I like France, and I like the French. I don't like Chirac, and there are many French who share my dislike for the same reasons (which are not those for why the Bushies dislike Chirac and France).

Now, as for the case at hand, the following failures occurred:

A) A Continental Aircraft was repaired in a manner not according to spec.
B) Said continental aircraft repair failed and spat out the jagged piece of titanium on the airstrip.
C) Airfield Authorities, whose job it is to keep the runways hazard-free, do not detect said piece of titanium.
D) a Concorde, at or (probably) above RTOW rolls down the runway and hits the strip.
E) Due to a design defect, documented for over 20 years, the tire doesn't just puncture, it explodes, and shrapnel punctures the wing, setting it on fire.
F) Asymmetric thrust causes the aircraft to veer.
G) Maintenance shortcomings on the Concorde probably aggravate the veering.
H) PF, past V1, elects that damage isn't sufficient to risk a potentially disastrous overrun, and continues takeoff.
I) PNF, although not ordered to do so, shuts down the engine with the fire warning, reducing thrust further.
J) Aircraft takes off, struggles, and crashes.
A-I all involve problems. Some of them (G) may be red herrings, but they're all pretty serious.
Continental's role is pretty minor. The Airfield's job is to keep the strip free of hazards. The Aircraft design crew's job is to make sure that FOD missed by the airfield is not capable of inducing catastrophic failure.
With the Concorde, which has a history of nasty problems from burst tires, and which needs a lot of runway, it would have made sense to run a check of the runway before takeoff. Then again, if you have a hazard that's a lethal problem for only one type of aircraft, then the problem is with that A/C type.

There are a lot of Americans a french investigating judge could bring up on criminal charges. But if the maintenance folks for Continental are so convicted, then our friend the investigating judge would be convicting them as political prisoners, either for some personal grudge of collective guilt, or the even worse crime of collective innocence of his compatriots.

rpm · « **Reply #24 on:** December 14, 2004, 04:25:19 PM »

Yes, it was tire failure that caused Concorde to crash. But it was not a "normal" failure. Concorde had problems early on with blowouts and a new design was made to prevent it from happening again. Unfortunately, they did not factor in a titanium cutting device on the runway.

This isn't a France vs USA thing. It's a sloppy Continental maintenence thing.

straffo · « **Reply #25 on:** December 14, 2004, 04:28:13 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by ASTAC
Just a bunch of dead rich folks...who need em? " Look at me..I can afford to fly the Concorde..I'll be home ***** my secretary behind my wifes back while you are still over the atlantic sitting in coach".

They were not that rich all where German retirees

Captain Virgil Hilts · « **Reply #26 on:** December 14, 2004, 04:42:18 PM »

Regardless of who was operating what plane under which flag, there was a serious problem with the Concorde and tires throughout its operating lifetime.

I'm not excusing Continental.

However, to have one blowout bring down an aircraft (and having a history of single blown tires nearly causing this same sort of tragedy constantly for the operating life of the plane) shows a serious design flaw. It is a flaw that everyone deeply involved with the Concorde knew was a serious problem nearly from the beginning. The truth is, they've had tires blowing out without hitting foreign objects or hitting very small foreign objects since the beginning of operation. And those blowouts have been doing serious damage and endangering the planes the whole time.

This time it was a large foreign object, but still, for all intents and purposes, one blown tire trashed the plane.

It was a very sad, tragic, and disappointing end to the operational career of the Concorde. That's a shame.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #27 on:** December 14, 2004, 05:32:48 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Curval
This is silly. If a part of Continental's plane fell off and caused the accident, which it did in my opinion, then that airline is partially responsible. That's it...no issue.

If this had been any other country's aircraft you would never have questioned the courts decision. Just more vieled France bashing.

Smells like bait to me. Bad bait at that. Shame on you Curval. I expect better from you.

FUNKED1 · « **Reply #28 on:** December 14, 2004, 05:36:39 PM »

Typical French government response. Refuse to accept responsibility, and blame Amreeka. Morons build an airplane so that a flat tire causes it to turn into a fireball, then they want to blame somebody else.

Curval · « **Reply #29 on:** December 14, 2004, 05:58:34 PM »

lol..SoA. Come on.

Muck actually posted the issue three times in his indignant rush to relate this story and vent at the French for daring to place blame on an American company. That is what this thread started as and was meant to be.

I like Muck and my opinion on French foreign policy is pretty low too (no offense to anyone here) so don't get me wrong...I'm just calling a "spade" a "spade".

I agreed that Concorde shares in the blame but I want Continental to share in it too. I fly alot. I'd prefer to fly in planes that don't have things "drop off" on takeoff and I certianly don't want to be in a plane behind one.

The causes, as detemined by the court in question were twofold:

"a structural fault in the Concorde's design, and a titanium metal strip left lying on the runway from a preceding Continental plane."

Hey, they got it right!

So what is the problem?

The problem for the thread starter and a few others is that it is a French court making a "call" on an American company.

I'm not implying that Americans have no feelings and that they didn't feel sorrow for what happened four years ago, but all that happened recently is that a court is determined who they felt was actually responsible.