Concorde, Burst tyre catalyst for disaster
French air accident officials investigating July's Concord crash have said that the runway from which the jet took off in Paris had not been checked. There had been a fire drill instead. The officials held a news conference today to elaborate on the findings of a preliminary report into last month's Concorde disaster, in which 113 people were killed. The report, which has been published on the Internet, confirmed that a burst tyre set off a chain of events that caused the plane to crash shortly after take-off.
The report says that investigators cannot be sure whether tyre fragments pierced the plane's fuel tanks or entered its engines. It also reveals that, in the final cockpit conversation, the pilot said that there was too little time to save the aircraft. Just one minute after the plane took off for New York, the control tower warned the crew of flames. As the fire raged through engine number two, the tower indicated that the plane had priority to land. The co-pilot replied that the gear would not come up and that they were attempting to divert to another airport. The final words, believed to be those of Captain Christian Marty, are "too late, no time."
The report notes how a 17-inch metal strip, believed to have come from another plane, was found on the runway and may have caused the tyre to explode. The investigators will now attempt to reassemble the crashed plane in their efforts to establish more details of the final chain of events. This report will add to speculation that the Concorde will never fly again. Air France owns five Concordes, British Airways owns seven. Even if a plan for safety modifications can be agreed, the cost could prove prohibitive.
