While this was legal under certain circumstances,
Not heard of that concession before. The wheel wobbled from side to side…
But who has the expertise to investigate faulty aircraft design.
Any investigation should include (and many actually do that) the analysis of the man-machine interface, at least as a contributing factor to the accident or incident. The whole SHELL concept was developed for that purpose, to analyze interactions between crew and participating systems including other humans. So yes, the expertise is there (or should be there or should be developed) and aircraft design should be investigated, especially if alternate designs exist.
@Emir the man machine interface forms part of reports. But a BEA report could rarely go so far as saying that a system design is at fault. They do not have the competence for that and never can have.
The design of the system comes under the purview of the regulatory authority NAA when certifying the system.
@Mooney_Driver the wheel wobble caused by the missing spacer was not identified by BA investigators as claimed..It was picked up by the BEA investigators when they got all the pieces laid out in the warehouse in Pontoise. There they discovered this spacer was missing. It is in the report to the judge plus the fact that the responsibility for that missing spacer was firmly put at the door of AF maintenance. The missing wheel spacer and its effects were tested and found that although it was poor maintenance it was felt to have had no relevance to this particular accident.
They stuck with this position even though the Concorde Pilots French and British and the French Concorde flight engineer felt otherwise and put it as relevant in their 60 page report to the judge. IIRC 6 months after the BEA report. The judicial enquiry investigated Air France maintenance on many subjects including the spacer and wobble.
The rest of what you wrote was IIRC in the BEA report.
There were many theories about what went wrong and what the crew should have done etc. The most relevant were investigated. The judge has the power to order the BEA to re look at something if it is thought relevant.
As I mentioned before I find it sad that you, as you say choose to believe the opinions of someone who was not part of an investigative team and whilst copy and pasting things from the report has attributed them to other organisations in an attempt to show a conspiracy against allowing him to rummage through everything in the warehouse even without any authority or expertise. But hey ho this controversy has probably brought him many more book sales. Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story. He isn’t the first and he won’t be the last.
Oh I forgot to mention that another reason it was felt that the missing spacer was not relevant in this case was that if it had caused a significant wobble as described, the crew would have felt it. The voice recording during take of did not give any indication that the crew including flight engineer did not identify any wobble. I heard a replay of the voice recording on BBC prime and was surprised how unaware the crew were of the seriousness of the situation and were talking of diverting to Le Bourget. The controller was telling them about the size of the flames.At one point even the chief fireman could be heard on the radio.
Airbus is currently developing feedback into their sticks. While it’s not certain that it will make its way in commercial aircrafts, it’s clearly something that’s on their roadmap.
That this would have changed anything in a high altitude stall is debatable. Even the dual input feedback may not have been felt by the pilots in the middle of stress. And for rare critical flaws that cannot be mitigated by procedures, it becomes EASA’s job to blame the manufacturer and ground the aircrafts (since they are the ones scrutinising the design and allowing certification).
Yes I forgot about EASA.
gallois wrote:
Yes I forgot about EASA.
As should the rest of the world 
@Gallois, the spacer was one hole in the cheese, not the major one, but one never the less. I think nobody ever stated it as the actual cause of the crash. What was said was that most probably the absence of the spacer caused an increase of vibration to the landing gear which at the time after the fracture of the tyre was a factor why they could not keep on centerline, along with the loss of thrust of engines 2 and 1.
IMHO, the main reason the crash was allowed to happen was the weight problem, combined with the fact that the crew was under time pressure.
Believe me, as a load master and later dispatcher I’ve faced scenarios like this galore. The temptation to overlook “just” a few kilos was always there. And I’ve seen scenarios, again not few of them but many, where airplanes had to decide in the take off position that it simply did not work and return or change the runway, even if it meant to piss off controllers, go against the flow or in the most brutal effect, cancel the flight due to night ban. To me and to many others I talked to, the weight issue was the big gotcha on this flight. And that was the one which got very little attention in the report.
The overweight situation was indeed described in the report but only with regards to the taxi fuel if I remember right.
Fact is, once the airplane went past V1 on this take off, the crew had not a lot of options left, particularly as the 747 was in the way. Marti probably saved the lives of the people in that 747 by taking his plane off the ground early, but at the same time he comitted his own plane to fly at a too low speed, which in the end proved fatal. Some Concorde people out of AF claimed that had he taken off at the proper speed, he might have been able to climb out but that would have depended on a lot of other factors too. Very theoretically, had the fuel in tank 5 exhausted itself (which it was not because the fuel transfer pumps stayed on) the fire would have gone out. This could have meant that the engines 2 and 1 or one of them could have recovered, as they stalled due to the hot gasses from the fire, even tough 1 recovered for a short while.
To me, the main purpose of accident avoidance is to identify those factors rather than putting blame on people. And the factors which stick out to me here is most definitly the weight/performance/RTOW situation and the fact that this caused the airplane to be on a runway it was not supposed to be and where it met the fatal flaw. Accidents never have one isolated reason.
Aveling wrote:
a Cessna allegedly run on paint thinners
That was an interesting read, and surprising they went into that much detail to investigate a what-if. Maybe it’s a scientific research thing: they tested it, got an answer, and now it can be ruled out in future. Not that it must happen very often. Most people would stop looking after finding the ecstasy
@Mooney_Driver I can agree with much of what you write and most of it was in the BEA report. The weight was a major factor in the report and was reported as IIRC that 10 bags were loaded onto the aircraft after the weight and balance calculations were made. The fuel load weight normally allowed for taxi was also more than usual.
There were also other mentions of weight and balance in the report.
However, the weight probably did not cause the fire although it was a factor in the crash itself. This was all included in the BEA report and put before the judge.
I totally agree with you about the fact that the BEAs jib is not to blame but to investigate what happened.
That’s why I am very wary of people who write books that walk the line between fact, opinion and conspiracy.
If you take out all the bits that were in the BEA report from the book, all you are left with is opinion, conspiracy theories and accusations of cover up.
There were a lot of theories from people that the public would think of as experts.
Only if they were proven as fact could the BEA put in the report and put before the judge.
If you haven’t done so you really should read the voice communications during the take off and during the fire.
There was a bit of a banter between controller and captain as the controller gave a wind speed of 90knts instead of from O90. I think the BBC still carry that voice recording on their website.
In the end, @Gallois, what is the important part of ANY investiation to you, as a pilot?
For me, it is what can I learn from this and other accidents.
In this example:
- Don’t muck about with Weight and Balance. Ever.
- If there is any doubt if you taking off in a safe condition, don’t take off.
- Don’t accept any maintenance shortcuts.
- Don’t let yourself be pressured by time restraints. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t.
- If conditions you expected change, make a new calculation. If that means to cancel or delay the flight, so be it.
- Airport authorities: Do all your prescribed runway checks, not only the ones you got time for.
For most non-Concorde operators this would be omnivalid conclusions of that crash.
