CO Outraged at Concorde Report

[manwest]

CONTINENTAL 'OUTRAGED' AT CONCORDE REPORTS

Continental Airlines said it was 'outraged' at reports that French authorities want to prosecute the airline and several employees over the Concorde crash that killed 113 people in Paris four years ago.

The airline issued a strongly worded statement after a report that investigating judge Christophe Regnard, who is heading a manslaughter probe into the disaster, had summoned several Continental officials for interrogation and plans to place them under formal investigation along with the company.

'We strongly disagree that anything Continental did was the cause of the Concorde accident, and we are outraged by the reports that criminal charges may have been made against our company and its employees,' the airline said.

The French justice ministry and the prosecutor's office handling the case declined to comment.

Other companies or individuals were also likely to face prosecution over the accident on 2000 JUL 25 when a Concorde plane crashed in flames onto a hotel shortly after taking off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.

An investigation by France's Accident Investigations Bureau concluded almost three years ago that the accident was caused by a badly installed titanium 'wear strip' that had fallen off the engine housing of a Continental Airlines Boeing DC-10 that took off from the same runway minutes earlier.

The metal bar caused a Concorde tire to burst, the report said, propelling rubber debris into the supersonic plane's fuel tanks.

In its statement, the airline said it was 'confident that there is no basis for a criminal action' against the company. 'We will defend any charges in the appropriate courts,' it said.

[J.O.]

The Concorde crash was tragic, but it was also a "chain of events" accident, where the removal of any one of several contributing events / factors would have prevented the loss of life. Once again we see how the authorities in Europe love to press charges against a foreign entity any time their own systems are found wanting. I guess it wouldn't be politically correct for the French authorities to lay manslaughter charges against the Aerospatiale engineering team who designed an airplane that could turn into a winged fireball because of a tire failure.

[AME]

I guess it wouldn't be politically correct for the French authorities to lay manslaughter charges against the Aerospatiale engineering team who designed an airplane that could turn into a winged fireball because of a tire failure.

You are right, however it could be argued that the Concorde had successfully performed thousands of take-offs without incident, and it was only the alleged shoddy maintenance of the DC 10 that caused the crash.

If this is proven, then I fully agree that the PRM, the person who performed the work, and the person who released the work should be held accountable.

Brett

[Don Hudson]

JO, AME;

This will be a tough one to prove. Although the Concorde did have thousands upon thousands of uneventful takeoffs, it did have more than just a few where shrapnel from a disintegrating tire punctured the fuel tank and in at least one case a fire resulted. While debris on the runway may have been an initializing cause to a sad and disastrous end to a brilliant airplane, there are issues with the design and issues with the millions of successful takeoffs of other aircraft even after a debris strike (or birdstrike for that matter ).

As we may surmise, in any accident, the power politics is an unbelievably high stakes game and the first real volley just got off.

Sad all round...just plain sad ending.

[Guest gldd]

I agree with CO, however, if this case is thrown out of court how about all the ridiculous law suits such as spilling hot coffee? The U.S. and Canada for that matter, has to seriously look at the way we practice law.

[GTFA]

What about the airport authority?

Aren't they responsible for maintaining the runway surface condition?

Liability is a bottomless pit and whoever has the most money or gets first dibs on the best lawyers will probably win the day.

[Don Hudson]

GTFA;

Re "Liability is a bottomless pit and whoever has the most money or gets first dibs on the best lawyers will probably win the day."

Absolutely. That's why the shotgun approach to lawsuits. Eventually something sticks and its usually where the money is. Individuals ultimately don't factor in these kinds of suits for obvious reasons unless they're leverage for something larger. Not a pretty business.

[AAS]

It would be interesting to know if BA had done any mods to their fleet to prevent the shredding tire problem that perhaps AF had not preformed

[Don Hudson]

AAS;

These are questions which will of course be answered in the final report.

An extensive preliminary report may be found at:

http://www.bea-fr.org/francais/rapports/rap.htm When there, click on "rapports", then do a search on "Concorde". There is only one report...

There are both English and French versions that one can click on. Each section of the report is available separately. The appendices are the last clickable url. The photographs of the runway, the takeoff and the debris are particularly good in telling the story. I believe, AAS, your question will be answered in these pages.

I haven't seen the final report yet.

Don