2000 Concorde Crash Mystery
It was a bright Tuesday afternoon in 2000 when the Air France Concorde supersonic jet crashed. This, most would recant, left a major dent in aviation history. This crash was unlike any other airline crash.
This crash resulted in the entire demolishing of the Concorde program, which had been one of the most fascinating eras in aviation history. Ever since 1969, the Concorde had been impressing onlookers and aviation buffs. Its characteristic down-turned nose made the Concorde constitutionally unique. Also, the fact that it was the only commercial airline to EVER fly supersonically? How intense is that?
So, what went wrong on this fateful day in 2000?
It took nearly 10 years to find out, and it appears that some mystery surrounding the Concorde crash still remains. In 2010, a French court ruled that Continental airlines were to blame for the Concorde crash.
The verdict seemed bizarre to many who were following the case. The courts established the decision based on evidence that a Continental mechanic “improperly monitored and maintained aircraft, resulting in a piece of titanium falling from a plane onto a runway at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport a few minutes before the ill-fated Concorde took off July 25, 2000,”
The ruling raised some questions about accountability in airline crashes. Here, Concord and Air France, as well as the Charles de Gaulle airport, were perfectly cleared of any wrongdoing. This sent a an unusual message about who maintains the runways at airports, as well as who handled the possible inhibiting structural issues that might have disposed the Concorde to crash. According to the court, the roughly 16-inch piece of metal (wear strip) ruptured a tire on the Air France jet as it sped down the runway for takeoff, and that debris punctured the jet’s low-lying fuel tank, provoking a leak and a fire. Yet the Concorde had been pestered with several mechanical and vocational difficulties prior to the 2000 crash. There were previous incidents of tires blowing on the Concorde, in 1979, and a fire provoked by fuel leakage occurred later in 1993.
As of late 2000, however, the causes of the crash were still a conundrum to investigators.
It was known that the tires of the plane were embroiled somehow. Investigators also knew that “a 40cm (16in) metal strip, probably from another plane, had been found on the runway at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport,” (Concorde: What Went Wrong? 2000).
Interestingly, Continental already admitted that its plane, a DC-10, was the one missing the piece of metal found on the runway. This led investigators to compare the shrapnel with the cut on the Concorde tyres to figure out if it fit; and it did.
The question was not just about the tires on the Concorde, which themselves did not cause the supersonic jet to crash.
Early in the investigation, it was believed that the tires might have caused the engine fires that ultimately caused the crash. The tire burst mid-flight because of the original puncture. The burst led to a an ensuing fuel tank puncture, leading to the kerosene leak.
Indeed, this early evaluation manifested the flowering of events that led to the crash. Black box flight data recorders were used to help compile evidence in the investigation, which offered a jumble of events until the 2010 decision was made.
The Concorde took off as scheduled, at 4:44 PM. The number 4 was considered so unpropitious and predetermined death that it would have been slandered by many Chinese around the world.
As soon as the Concorde took off, an outbreak of problems arose. First, a tire hit debris from the Continental Shard on the runway. The tyre burst immediately. A black box report indicates smoke under the left wing. Unfortunately, at this point, it was too late to abort the launch. The wing quickly burst into flames and one engine lost power. The pilot tried to stabilize the aircraft, but the aircraft was already nose-up, causing it to stall and become out of control due to lack of speed and lift.
The plane crashed into a hotel in Paris. Four people were killed on the ground, along with 100 passengers and nine crew members.
The Continental was deemed guilty of manslaughter and ordered to pay several hundereds of thousands of dollars in damages. The mechanic was fined, and given a prison sentence. The injunctions seem relatively light compared to the extent of the damage, which could suggest that Charles de Gaulle and/or Air France admitted accountability in private for Continental’s admission of guilt. However, some French systems got ruled amiably, even though not criminally, susceptible in the case.
EADS-France, the organization for which the French Concorde engineers work, was held civilly liable and ordered to pay 30% of about $250,000 in damages to victims!
Regardless of if the court ruling was fair, the event marked the end of an era.
The Concorde was an amazing triumph of engineering that captured the vision of many. The dream of supersonic transport was ultimately fulfilled in the late 1960s. Ironically, Concorde’s first flight in 1969 was described as impeccable and ‘faultless’!
The plane flew from France for less than half an hour before landing. It would take nearly a decade before Concorde was ready for commercial enterprise.
The first commercial flight on the Concorde was on January 21, 1976, from London to Bahrain. The same day, an Air France Concorde flew from Paris to Rio. Its launch into the commercial sector was not without difference, as it was during the elevation of the fuel crisis and economic downturn in the 1970s.
Initial investments from the British and French governments seemed hilly and irrelevant and were culturally opposed.
Moreover, the Concorde had a seriously limited reach. This was not just because of the expense of operating the supersonic jet, which required a much heavier fuel consumption than standard commercial airliners. It was also because of the supersonic boom. Despite the financial and political obstacles, though, it remained in the air for almost 25 years.
In 2003, the Concorde was formally departed after its last flight out of JFK, New York. Several aircraft remain, stranded indefinitely, and scattered throughout the world in hangars in Edinburgh, Seattle, and Barbados (British Airways). They are relics of a time long gone by. No new Concorde has been manufactured since 1980 (Walsh, 2000). It is uncertain whether a next-generation supersonic jet will emerge in the future, perhaps with the Virgin or Emirates icon behind it.
Supersonic transport might simply not have any applicable commercial purpose, making the Concorde a part of aviation history rather than an aviation future. Concorde may have now become a part of the history books, but it has left a lasting legacy behind it. What a technological masterpiece.
Concorde will always hold a special mention in the aviation history as a pioneering technological victory and it just might influence the next big thing in aviation technology.
We truly have come a long way from the time when the Wright brothers took their flying machine for a spin. From then on, there was no stopping us from the skies. We’ve come a long way and reached supersonic speeds and then we pulled back. The Concorde was a legendary plane, this is a tribute to this marvel of engineering.
