Peter wrote:
Fascinating stuff on the investigation of the French Concorde crash, and vanishing evidence and all that stuff.
Oh. That does it, just ordered the book.
Mike Bannister is certainly someone whom I listen to when it comes to Concorde.
Other books on that subject would include
Peter Duffey’s account of both the Comet and Concorde developments.
And of course Christopher Orlebar’s “Concorde Story”. He was a great guy, met him when he flew 737’s as Captain following his time on Concorde as FO. I understand he got out a revised edition later on. My signed copy is a prized possession.
For the French speakers, there is a great book by André Turcat. “Concorde, éssayes et batteiles.”
Got a signed copy of that one as well.
I just finished Mike Bannister’s book Concorde – it only arrived yesterday. I barely put it down from start to finish. A truly amazing book.
And a pretty terrifying indictment of Air France and the French judicial system, too. It’s the first I knew that the first tank rupture actually occurred WAY before the famous strip of metal, due a serious maintenance failure (failure to install an essential spacer in one of the undercarriage bogies). Or that prob90 or so a systematic abuse of SOP was what caused tank 5 to explode when hit by the tyre fragment – coupled with a complete breakdown of CRM. Given the recent couple of AF CRM stories, that shouldn’t be a surprise.
Part of me says never to fly AF again. Though given where I live, that isn’t terribly realistic. They provide excellent customer service in the cabin, but you just have to pray that you’ve got a crew that has some idea how to operate an airliner.
It has hilarious bits like when the UK AAIB investigators were walking along the wreckage in the French BEA hangar, they had to use secret gestures to point to certain parts, because they were watched and if they pointed at them openly, that part would be removed before the next day. One gesture involved bending over and doing up one’s shoelaces while whispering to the other.
Hilarious but scary. It’s pretty clear, though he never says it, that the French investigators were told “whatever you do, don’t point the finger at Air France”. So the whole investigation became about finding something else – the famous strip of metal.
There was just so much “normalization of deviance” at AF – the overfilling of the tanks, the maintenance issue, poor CRM, taking off overweight. It was just bad luck that it all came together on this flight, but prob99 it had been going on that way for years. And likely still is. Brrr.
johnh wrote:
Part of me says never to fly AF again.
I’ve taken that decision long ago. Looking at their record, 4 major crashes in the comparatively recent past, several cover ups and other stuff, AF has been off the limit for me for a long time.
johnh wrote:
And a pretty terrifying indictment of Air France and the French judicial system, too.
Any accident report and judical proceedings particularly if it involves a French built airplane, French company or French crew, needs to be taken with bucketloads of salt. They got caught out (mostly) on the Concorde case, but there are many accidents where findings are quite interesting to say the least. Or where the reason for the crash was determined practically before the investigation started.
A very good book on the complexity of AF447, written by a Part 121 Airbus 330 TRE, is Understanding AF447.
https://understandingaf447.com/
While no doubt the flight crew made mistakes, I think the relatively average level of systems knowledge coming out of the type rating, and EASA ATPL TK (not in my view the case with Part 121 line training), would leave even relatively good flight crew confused. Even today the EASA A-UPRT TK component has not quite absorbed all the lessons from AF447, and a relatively simplified case study is reviewed.
Just started on that book. One paragraph really struck me:
In cases where the airspeed does not return to within 50kt of the original airspeed within about 10 seconds, Alternate law is locked in for the remainder of the flight and the autopilot cannot be re-engaged.
(page 41)
I could not believe such totally brain-dead logic – basically it consigns the rest of the flight to hand-flying and a fairly easy instrument approach – but another crew reported having to do exactly that on the previous page. They were lucky; they were in VMC for the rest of the flight.
How can this kind of stuff enter airline service without challenge?
I often wonder why there is no training in the IR for partial panel (pitot static problems), but dedicated modules for limited panel (loss of gyros/AHRS).
In this case study there is no simulator that can replicate high altitude stall conditions in alternate law, also in normal law, and obviously no civilian crew (outside test pilots) practice this in the aircraft. The muscle memory training on the type rating is all alpha-floor biased, and the TK emphasises mach buffet as an abnormal condition at high altitude. In addition the stick logic and behaviour is different in alternate law. How do you hope to maintain currency in alternate law hand flying, especially at flight levels where hand flying is prohibited under SOPs.
I took away from the book that this civilian crew was let down by the training, with scenarios that can’t be faithfully replicated in a simulator.
johnh wrote:
There was just so much “normalization of deviance” at AF – the overfilling of the tanks, the maintenance issue, poor CRM, taking off overweight. It was just bad luck that it all came together on this flight, but prob99 it had been going on that way for years. And likely still is. Brrr.
I just finished the book and I do hope I will run across Captain Bannister again one day in Brooklands to shake his hand. It fills in quite a few blanks I still had in this case, even though it had been clear pretty early that some of the claims by the French were wrong. And those who had followed French “tactics” in hushing up embarrassing accidents and incidents, including scrapping one Concorde without telling anyone why years earlier after flying it for months after a tailstrike, should not be surprised.
However, some of the stuff revealed in Bannister’s book is outright criminal. And those who were on trial over Concorde were the wrong people and this with full knowledge of the powers which did all the withness intimidation and other stuff.
Anyway, whoever it was, thanks for the pointer. That book imho is a must read.
Just finished “Wings on my sleeve” by Eric Brown.
Great read by a total 100% aviation anorak. There is one sentence where he says he got a month off so got married and another where his son was born 
He was a truly very good pilot, at all levels, fixed wing, pistons, jets, helis. Had a briefing on the Phantom and then flew it solo.
