I think if we shot most of the lawyers on the planet we could save ourselves a lot of trouble...

French prosecutors investigating the manslaughter of the 113 people killed in the Air France Concorde crash four years ago are to summon senior executives of the US airline Continental.
Judicial experts concluded yesterday that the disaster was caused by a titanium strip which fell off a Continental jet and was left lying on the runway of the Charles de Gaulle airport.
The metal strip burst a tyre on the Concorde and sent debris flying into a fuel tank, causing the aircraft to become engulfed by a fireball. The 185-tonne aircraft crashed into a hotel outside the airport 85 seconds after take-off.
Continental Airlines' chief executive, Gordon Bethune, and chief operating officer, Larry Kellner, are to be called to appear before an investigating judge in March.
Three of its technical staff will be called to appear in February.
The prosecutors allege that Continental was breaking the US federal aviation authority's safety regulations by using titanium for the "wear strip" on its DC-10 instead of aluminium. Because titanium is harder, it made the accident more likely.
Continental said in a statement yesterday: "We strongly disagree that anything Continental did was the cause of the Concorde accident, and we are outraged that media reports have said criminal charges may be made against our company and its employees.
"We are confident that there is no basis for a criminal action and we will defend any charges in the appropriate courts."
Many of the 109 passengers on the Concorde flight AF4590 to New York were German tourists on the first leg of a Caribbean holiday.
The families of some of the victims have opted to seek financial recompense from Continental Airlines, despite a $120m (£62bn) compensation package offered by Air France in 2001.
Flames trailed for 60 metres (200ft) from the aircraft when its fuel tank burst. Everybody on board died and there were four victims on the ground.
The French judicial report was critical of the Corcorde's design, pointing to insufficient protection of its fuel tanks and weaknesses in the "training and preparation of the Concorde teams".

This really is pathetic. It was an ACCIDENT! It was virtually impossible to foresee such a thing. Its a bit like saying "Lets sue the Wright brothers for giving us aviation"

Money, money , money......

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Like to see the legal people try to design it better...

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Why not sue God for giving us the sky!

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Thankfully a radar is being tested/developed in the UK that scans the runway surface between movements...

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It was a passenger airliner, not a fighter plane. The fuel tanks wern't designed to be self sealing or anything resistant, they were only meant to hold fuel.

It's like saying the Titanic's hull was a weak point because it couldn't survive an impact with an iceberg.

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Lol, titanics hull WAS a weak point because it couldn't survive an iceberg, it was made of iron, which is not as strong as say, steel. These days the average cruise ship can stand an iceberg of that nature.

I read that...but thought I might get shouted at for putting up another BBC news link
One might as well say.. sue the airport for not having a clean runway.....
Some things are accidents - they have to remain that way. This buisness of suing here there and everywhere is ridiculous.

The thing that everyone is missing is that the French legal system demands this sort of questioning in all types of accident. They are not trying to lay blame .... just establish the complete picture.

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Firstly it didnt have dangerously thin fuel tanks. They were well within tolerance of all foreseeable situations. remembering that when concorde was designed and built titanium was not used quite so much in jets, if at all. Our historians can help there. As for the not building a fighter comment. up until recently all passenger jets were designed and built to much tougher rules and restrictions. and the there was always going to be a puncture in its lifetime comment. No there wasnt, it was an accident, nobody could have known it would happen, if anything it was down the bottom of the list of likely scenarios

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This seems a very good point. I have no knowledge of the French legal system but it seems to me they left any inquiry a liitle late to do any good. The tragic accident, incident or whatever you like to call it, happened over 4 years ago. Since then, Concorde was modified at great expense before being retired from service, partly as a result of the Paris crash. It's highly unlikely that one will ever fly again.

There is an "acceptable risk" element with any piece of machinery. Many of us travel in aircraft & other vehicles or drive our own cars with potentionally dangerous faults that have never been rectified despite the manufacturers & authorities being fully aware of them. A certain percentage of serious injury & deaths caused by the product is regarded as acceptable. No company these days would dare accept responsiblity for fear of being sued & possibly made bankrupt.

I am not saying they didnt predict punctures your right they did. However in tests none of them caused the damage that was caused during the crash. Now i havent seen the full evidence reports, or various other bits of paperwork, but i am thinking this piece of titanium also struck the wing, add that into the long term wear on the metal which will have softened it, weakend it over time. Perhaps Airfrance should look at themselves for not constantly checking these things.

yeah thats pretty much what i heard, i am still unclear whether or not the titanium along with the tyre fragments also hit the wing. Its amazing how sharp the metal is and thats the sort of damage it could cause.

I think the biggest problem with taking concorde out of service for both BA and Air France, was the fact  it was their flagship. There were many small problems which if the plane would have been taken out for a refit could have been fixed permanently, however they chose not to and decided to continually fix the problem as it happend. Your right though its definatly about the economics, too bad that it takes the loss of life to get things to change.

Again, BA's concordes were involved in less incidents (pieces falling off and so on) than Air France. A guy who worked on Concorde for BA who used to post on Anet, would talk about how Airfrance were coming to BA quite often for spares and rudders, among other things

The solution, wasnt an easy fix. It took a lot of time for BA and air france to upgrade the tank lining. However BA also saw it as an opportunity, with Air France being Grounded indefinatly and BA knowing they would soon face the same problem, they took theirs out of service early and used the extra time to upgrade the interiors aswell as the saftey side. Air France chose not to do the same and as a result i feel they really missed an opportunity.

But why did BA's concordes go out of service, they could'v kept them in couldn't they?, There was no law stopping them was there?

Also, what happened to Branson's offer? Is he still keen?

We've discussed all this before at some length. If I remember correctly, Airbus withdrew their spares backup. Without that there was no possible way it could continue in service. Branson's offer was never realistic. The grand old lady is dead. I wish they would let her rest in peace.

BA would have sent every one of their Concordes to the scrapyard to be destroyed before they would let Branson have them.

Of course, but since they bought the planes from the government, it was up to them entirely where they ended up:)
Thats why Branson went after the air france airframes, too bad he's too stupid to realise he would have ended up with a bunch of lemons Plus with all the help BA gave to AF in its final few months, me thinks they were in  AF's ear asking them to not give Branson the plane.

Yea, i noticed Air Frances aircraft are always in such a shi*ty condition. Dirty and screwed up, :
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/145289/L/

lol sorry, fixed it now

Lol, Bransons wierd.

He started a new airline in NZ/AUstralia called "Pacific Blue" with 2 737-800's, one of which i can see out of my window now. I don't think it'l last, i mean, people would rather fly freedom air on a short flight to Aussie.

But there's no reason to hate him, you' neva met him, he can't have got to where he is by being an idiot.

I suggest that Richard Branson is far more intelligent than you give him credit for. Nobody could do what he's done, despite the BA management doing their best to force him out of business (just as they had done with Freddie Laker) without a great deal of flair & business acumen. Good luck to him I say.

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I'm sure this was a touch of irony. He would have paid a realistic price but £1 each was what those aircraft cost BA.

BA was never my favourite company to deal with. In fact they didn't want to deal with my company at all. As we were the only approved supplier of Concorde wheel bearings they were forced to. I rather liked that.

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I'm retired. Nobody outside the business would recognise the name of the company I worked for.

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I can understand your feelings to a certain extent as I have the same feelings about the top management of BA. I won't mention any names but I'm sure you get my drift. I don't see how you can possibly make a fair judgement without meeting the man personally. He could be quite different to how he's presented in the media. From what I hear he's a nice person. My niece works as a senior flight attendant at Virgin Atlantic & I'm sure she would confirm that. Did you know that if you ring his office & he's there he will often answer it himself? Not only that but he is happy to speak to anyone.

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This is typical of the British public. You should see the fuss when the council announces plans to close one of the local theatres. Very few locals support it but whenever it's suggested there's a public outcry.

Nothing wrong with a little fun. A sense of humour helps a great deal in business. In fact I would probably have suffered a nervous breakdown without mine.

I think Branson is as good a businessman as Bill Gates. That doesnt mean he's a nice person, or is nice to people, or even does business cleanly. It just means that he is a clever businessman who knows how to deal with things and get other people to do what he wants. That is why he is so succesful. Morals these days are not tolorated if you are to do well in making money.

These days, a good businessman does not have to be nice or generous, they have to be bold and ruthless, it's a sad fact but it's true.

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Good point. I watched a television show on the airline Pacific Blue and he flew all the way down to New Zealand to meet the flight attendants and crew.

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Well, the body can withstand speeds unimaginable. It's getting to that speed and slowing down from it that affects humans. I would say you woulda accelerated to the speed of sound quite slowly (seeing it was 1959!!) and you wouldn't of noticed. Didn't you feel the sonic boom though?

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Really?, You learn something everyday

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How high were you at the time?

this may sound kinda' dumb, but I know your hearing isnt effected when traveling that fast. But I could never understand why. It seems to me that if you are going faster than sound, then you should pass whatever sounds are around you and not be able to hear them.
Again, I know it isnt true, but I dont understand it.

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If the aircraft is travelling faster than sound so is everything inside it, including the occupants & the air in the cabin or cockpit. This is relative to the world outside & in straight & level flight at a constant speed you would have no sensation of motion at all. Your environment is not affected by speed but acceleration. In just the same way you could get out of your seat & walk around the cabin of Concorde travelling at Mach 2. It's highly unlikely you would hear anything outside the aircraft even at subsonic speeds.

PS. In the original TV ads for Concorde they showed a glass of water (maybe it was something stronger) & a coin standing on edge on one of the passenger tables. This was filmed in flight with the machmeter in the cabin in shot. There was no sign of a ripple on the liquid in the glass & the coin remained stationary & upright even when the magic figure was reached on the machmeter. At the normal operating altitude of Concorde there would far less chance of turbulence than on an ordinary subsonic passenger jet.

I found this photo which is the way I prefer to remember this wonderful aircraft.

I saw a great way of explaining how you hear Concorde when its supersonic the other day. Basically imagine a cone, with the point being at Concordes nose with the cone going off behind, getting wider and wider. Outside of this cone you'll hear nothing, inside the cone you'll hear the aircraft/sonic boom.

You have to remember that with the wake of a boat you have two sets of waves, one coming off the bow, where the water is being parted, and one off the stern. The same will apply to Concorde. With the wake of a boat almost all the disturbance in the water is directly behind and within the waves given off by the stern of the vessel. With Concorde going through the sound barrier the nose is the part actually breaking the barrier, and so parting the air, you'll have another wave further down the aircraft and after that you'll have the sound disturbance.

kry, they have runway inspections throughout the day, a car will drive down the runway checking, but they only do a couple