French Concorde crash cover up?

[Raja Clavata]

Don't know if this has been discussed here before but this goes against what I had considered established facts of the events leading up to that fateful accident. Sent to me today from a pilot friend...

 

The RAeS lecture by Concorde pilot John Hutchinson last night was fascinating and astonishing.

He presented clear evidence that the French authorities, who conducted the crash investigation, covered up the true cause and tried to blame Continental airways engineers and design weaknesses in Concorde. The truth is that Air France was totally to blame.

Firstly their maintenance procedures were extremely poor. During an undercarriage service a spacer, that kept the wheels tracking straight, was not replaced. The spacer was later found on the shelf in the maintenance hangar. The aircraft had done four flights with this defect prior to the crash so it wasn’t the prime cause, but as with all accidents there were a number of other errors that all added up.

This may have been another successful flight had the crew not of had such a cavalier attitude to flight safety. The first officer’s licence had expired making the flight illegal. This wasn’t a factor in the crash but demonstrates the unprofessional attitude in Air France. The main fault lies with the Captain who overrode procedure and ordered the tanks to be filled to the brim instead of the normal 80%.

He ordered more fuel than was required to be put in the aft tanks used for taxiing. He allowed 19 bags, that had not been weighed, to be loaded in the aft hold. All this made the aircraft over weight and the CofG out of limits. Presumably due to the weight and balance being out of limits he requested to use the runway extension, even though it was officially out of use because it was being re-surfaced. He also elected to take off with an 8 kt tail wind.

The French investigations verdict was that the crash was caused by a metal strap falling off a Continental airways DC10 onto the runway which burst a tyre, punctured the Concordes fuel tank starting a fire. What really happened was that as the aircraft accelerated over the unprepared part of the runway it hit a ledge as it crossed onto the prepared surface at about 100kt. This caused the wheels to track to the left as they had no spacer to constrain them. The tyres overheated and burst starting the fire. The aircraft slewed off the runway to the left, hit a runway light and the metal strap which carved a piece of tyre off which was then thrown up into the wing tank setting up a shock wave.

As the tank was full there was nowhere for it to go other than out through the top of the wing streaming fuel into the engine efflux. The engine overheated but wasn’t on fire and was still producing power. The flight engineer ignored normal procedure and shut the engine down. As the aircraft was past V2 he should have allowed the aircraft to gain height before doing that. All this contributed to the aircraft crashing into a hotel killing all 109 on board and 4 people in the hotel.

The death toll could have been a lot worse. As the Concorde was careering off the runway it missed a fully loaded 747 waiting for permission to cross, by just 20 feet. On board that aircraft was the President of France and his wife. In addition to that a British youth orchestra had planned to stay in the hotel. Had it not been for their ferry being delayed they would have checked in and certainly perished as well. What makes the French authorities actions even worse was that they obstructed the UKs AAIB investigation, not allowing full and timely access to the crash site and certain evidence.

The French prosecuted the Continental Airways engineers for manslaughter and they unfairly blamed design weaknesses in Concorde. The engineers were later acquitted on appeal, and this is where much of the hidden evidence came to light.

After the trial the French barrister, who successfully defended the engineers, was mysteriously found dead but the French didn’t hold an inquest into that. A disgraceful chain of events that eventually led to Air France, who wanted to see Concorde grounded, putting pressure on Airbus, who were the design authority for Concorde, to increase their charges to British Airways. This was a deliberate act to make the aircraft too expensive to operate and resulted in an unjustifiable slur on the reputation of one of the greatest aircraft ever to fly.

Thanks for John Hutchinson for revealing the truth and the shame on the French for allowing this to happen.

[Farmboy91]

Genuinely very interesting,

We had the tour of concorde at Brooklands and my lad was facinated, I still think in awe at the engineering that went into it at the time. 

If there's real truth to this it would be nice to think someone would actually be held accountable, how much difference it will make now though? 

[figgy]

Thought cover ups in aviation were a thing of the past. 

[KB1]

I would expect this to break onto MSM if it's true…..

 

[Vince Green]

1 hour ago, figgy said:

Thought cover ups in aviation were a thing of the past. 

The French are very prone to cover up official embarrassments 

[Houseplant]

32 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

The French are very prone to cover up official embarrassments 

Yes, like a government-sanctioned act of terrorism/murder in NZ in 1985. Hard to believe!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

 

[Harnser]

That’s a very shocking story . I do hope the truth comes out .

harnser

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Shocking, what a chain of events that lead to the deaths of so many people.

[Yellow Bear]

The French seldom "play by the rules" as a government and just protect their own.  You only need to look to the CAP, illegal migrant trafficking, and EU for that.

[Scully]

Why has it taken 19 years for these claims to be made? 

[wymberley]

1 hour ago, Scully said:

Why has it taken 19 years for these claims to be made? 

You need to more than half that figure. Legal activity regarding the crash was still going on in 2012 and possibly later than that. More often than not an accident is down to an unfortunate series of events and for some reason is particularly so with aircraft crashes - possibly perhaps because of the extensive investigations which follow reveal a mass of information. One point which remains valid is that despite all of the high tech involved in aircraft design and their operations, a metal strip in France or some Canada geese in the USA can reduce this technology to rubble in an instant and is collectively known as FOD - foreign object damage.

[Scully]

14 minutes ago, wymberley said:

You need to more than half that figure. Legal activity regarding the crash was still going on in 2012 and possibly later than that. More often than not an accident is down to an unfortunate series of events and for some reason is particularly so with aircraft crashes - possibly perhaps because of the extensive investigations which follow reveal a mass of information. One point which remains valid is that despite all of the high tech involved in aircraft design and their operations, a metal strip in France or some Canada geese in the USA can reduce this technology to rubble in an instant and is collectively known as FOD - foreign object damage.

Fair enough, but the OP said it was sent to him by a pilot friend ‘today’ ( his post was only 12 hours ago ) and the email refers to ‘last night’,  so I assumed the expose of the alleged coverup was recent. 

 

[Rewulf]

A conspiracy ? No way !

This sort of thing simply cant happen !

[wymberley]

47 minutes ago, Scully said:

Fair enough, but the OP said it was sent to him by a pilot friend ‘today’ ( his post was only 12 hours ago ) and the email refers to ‘last night’,  so I assumed the expose of the alleged coverup was recent. 

 

Yep, but what I was getting at is that any claims of whatever nature can't be justifiably made while any investigations into technical problems, culpability or whatever are ongoing.

[Raja Clavata]

52 minutes ago, Scully said:

Fair enough, but the OP said it was sent to him by a pilot friend ‘today’ ( his post was only 12 hours ago ) and the email refers to ‘last night’,  so I assumed the expose of the alleged coverup was recent. 

 

As far as I'm aware the lecture was given on 19th September 2019.

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2019/09/22/concorde-crash-french-cover-up-claims-ex-pilot/

 

11 minutes ago, wymberley said:

Yep, but what I was getting at is that any claims of whatever nature can't be justifiably made while any investigations into technical problems, culpability or whatever are ongoing.

My understanding too.

[Scully]

40 minutes ago, wymberley said:

Yep, but what I was getting at is that any claims of whatever nature can't be justifiably made while any investigations into technical problems, culpability or whatever are ongoing.

Again, fair enough. But does that prevent him from making known, what he claims to know, for 19 years? I don’t get that at all.

If it had been me I’d have been shouting it from the highest rooftop from the outset. Doesn't add up to me. 

[wymberley]

57 minutes ago, Scully said:

Again, fair enough. But does that prevent him from making known, what he claims to know, for 19 years? I don’t get that at all.

If it had been me I’d have been shouting it from the highest rooftop from the outset. Doesn't add up to me. 

Good lord no, he can say whatever he likes. All it requires having done so is to stand  by with his cheque book and possibly house deeds to hand just in case the evidence eventually reflects that he's got it wrong and should he have slated any individual or organisation they decide to have some recompense.

It would be the same as if I was silly enough to express an opinion that a helicopter, say, should have landed some good few minutes before it actually crashed because there was a low level fuel situation and the FRCs said that was the required action, when in fact the pilot's calculations were correct and the fuel gauges were faulty and the real problem was the engine ingested an owl - FOD again.

 

One possible point of interest with the Concorde would be for an independent body suitably qualified to look into whether or not the aircraft had a viable economic future. You can bet your bottom dollar that the wrong answer would be one root cause for any possible cover up - not that there was, of course.

[andrewluke]

on ch5 now "The Concorde Crash",on ch44 at 22.15

[Raja Clavata]

👍

[wymberley]

I can't answer for current practise as I've been out far longer than I was in, but a favourite pastime on a Friday afternoon on an operational RAF airfield - and for good reason as will be realised - was a FOD Plod.

[henry d]

1 hour ago, wymberley said:

I can't answer for current practise as I've been out far longer than I was in, but a favourite pastime on a Friday afternoon on an operational RAF airfield - and for good reason as will be realised - was a FOD Plod.

Flight decks too👣

[Retsdon]

1 hour ago, wymberley said:

but a favourite pastime ..... was a FOD Plod.

Excuse my ignorance, but what's an FOD Plod?

[wymberley]

58 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

Excuse my ignorance, but what's an FOD Plod?

A little light exercise open to all ranks. Just like beating, you line out on the taxi/run way/flight deck and set off at a gentle stroll picking up everything which shouldn't be there which is just waiting to be run over thus damaging tyres or ingested into engines

[TIGHTCHOKE]

9 minutes ago, wymberley said:

A little light exercise open to all ranks. Just like beating, you line out on the taxi/run way/flight deck and set off at a gentle stroll picking up everything which shouldn't be there which is just waiting to be run over thus damaging tyres or ingested into engines

Normally conducted after the annual firework display!

[Scully]

On 24/09/2019 at 12:08, wymberley said:

Good lord no, he can say whatever he likes. All it requires having done so is to stand  by with his cheque book and possibly house deeds to hand just in case the evidence eventually reflects that he's got it wrong and should he have slated any individual or organisation they decide to have some recompense.

It would be the same as if I was silly enough to express an opinion that a helicopter, say, should have landed some good few minutes before it actually crashed because there was a low level fuel situation and the FRCs said that was the required action, when in fact the pilot's calculations were correct and the fuel gauges were faulty and the real problem was the engine ingested an owl - FOD again.

 

One possible point of interest with the Concorde would be for an independent body suitably qualified to look into whether or not the aircraft had a viable economic future. You can bet your bottom dollar that the wrong answer would be one root cause for any possible cover up - not that there was, of course.

No, I don’t accept that at all. People make claims all the time to the contrary of official statements.