Concorde's last flight documentary

Hi Njaym
I did not surmise that the trace surfaced after the final report,i just wondered if it surfaced after the initial or interim report was published.
Thanks for links but I will not look at them because in aviation – the devil is in the detail and I will not know for sure it is the final report.
I have never subscribed to any cover up theory on that particular accident,one can clearly hear the engines spool up as the a/c goes into the trees,and since early days there has been enough info around to work out roughly what happened.

rgds baz

It’s an interesting plot which is why it’s worth tracing it’s origins

Hi njaym
I am not focussing on the A320 per se,I am using it as an illustration about how much info and misinfo is around on the net.
Was the original report the equivalent of an initial or interim report as in uk?
The trace may not have surfaced until the final report was published!!

edit …pprune is a good source – with many knowledgeable people,trouble is you have to wade through hundreds of walts and to55ers sometimes as well 🙂

rgds baz

Hi Bazv
The trace/plot is an interesting one which is why I commented on it not being in the original BEA report.
I have given the URL http://www.bea.aero/docspa/1988/f-kc880626/pdf/f-kc880626.pdf for the BEA report and it looks to me the final one albeit in French.
It includes some very poor quality black and white pics initially and then in the closing pages prints these same pics in absolutely clearly colours.
Do have a shifty through the report as although the text is in French the technical stuff (charts and tables) are language independent. French isn’t all that difficult to grapple with anyway.
You may be correct in surmizing that the trace/plot you posted surfaced after the final report but that itself is a bit damming to say the least on the entire investigation.

Justice in a true democracy can be long tedious road

Jay,
We are all looking for Justice
Of the accused 2 are from Continental 2 are from aerospatiale and 1 from the French civil directorate
Where are the executives from AF , where are the engineers , where are those responsible for the overloading of the aircraft ,I don’t see their names in the docket and why are their names missing.
One continental engineer who fitted the strip which Concorde hit has been charged ,but the engineer who failed to fit the wheel spacer isn’t
The head of Engineering at Continental has been charged ,but the head of AF engineering hasn’t WHY?
It was a AF .aircraft ,flown By AF crew ,Serviced AF engineers ,loaded by AF Ground Crew, which crashed
Yet no one from AF has been charged WHY ?

Those who died deserve Justice , not a cover up ,those relatives need Justice not a cover-up

Hi Kevin
I agree with most of what you are saying above and have some insight into the frustration all of us are facing that have commented on this thread. We all subscribe to better safety, improved efficiency and a developing airline industry with as much openess as is commercially viable.

And most importantly we all sadly miss Concorde.

I repeat what I say that the imminent French lawyer that Continental Airlines have representing them holds the keys to unlock this entire investigation. If he does not get his clients off the hook I hope he steers this case out of the Palais du Justice to a higher European court.

If the lawyer for Continental doesn’t go to a higher European court then lawyers representing the bereaved Germans and other passengers can if their clients instruct them to do so, take this to a higher European court.

Do you think that lawyers for the passengers, haven’t thought of the very poignant questions you pose, on why certain parties aren’t being held responsible and/or charged?

The judicial process is sadly a very tedious one in any democratic country and once it goes pan European both costs and time extend to almost infinity.

It also delays psychological closure for many bereaved relatives and in their interests possibly some of their own lawyers may be advising them against pursuing this too vehemently. Without being crude about it some of them may have settled on forms of compensation and sought personal closure that way.(This may not be what you or I see as morally correct but humans are fallible)

I summarised this entirely by saying that a ‘true’ absolutely factual time line (to the nearest millisecond) is what is required, from if necessary the time the original Concorde had to be replaced by an older Concorde which needed maintenence before it was declared fit to fly and then up to the millisecond it crashed.

By doing it this way it can answer what came first fire or tyre burst following impact with metal. Into the timeline must go full CVR, FDR analyses, all eye witness accounts (firecrews, Flight crew and passengers of the AF jumbo carrying Jaque Chirac who saw Concorde ablaze and taking off) and especially those of ATC including their full transcripts of verbal interaction with AF4590.

Any professional physicist or applied mathematician can very quickly work out how far if any the thin metal strip would have moved when struck by the tyre albeit the tyre was moving at a very high velocity and acceleration.

Jay,
We are all looking for Justice
Of the accused 2 are from Continental 2 are from aerospatiale and 1 from the French civil directorate
Where are the executives from AF , where are the engineers , where are those responsible for the overloading of the aircraft ,I don’t see their names in the docket and why are their names missing.
One continental engineer who fitted the strip which Concorde hit has been charged ,but the engineer who failed to fit the wheel spacer isn’t
The head of Engineering at Continental has been charged ,but the head of AF engineering hasn’t WHY?
It was a AF .aircraft ,flown By AF crew ,Serviced AF engineers ,loaded by AF Ground Crew, which crashed
Yet no one from AF has been charged WHY ?

Those who died deserve Justice , not a cover up ,those relatives need Justice not a cover-up

Hi njaym
I am not focussing on the A320 per se,I am using it as an illustration about how much info and misinfo is around on the net.
Was the original report the equivalent of an initial or interim report as in uk?
The trace may not have surfaced until the final report was published!!

edit …pprune is a good source – with many knowledgeable people,trouble is you have to wade through hundreds of walts and to55ers sometimes as well 🙂

rgds baz

This trace/plot isn’t in the original report

[QUOTE=bazv;1610785]Just out of general interest,sorry for more thread hijack – but what does the panel think of this trace from the Habsheim A320 ?
QUOTE]

Hi Bazv

Maybe worth opening a new thread or re-kindling an existing one on this topic, as it is digressing from Concorde.

The trace/plot you have posted isn’t in the original BEA Report http://www.bea.aero/docspa/1988/f-kc880626/pdf/f-kc880626.pdf

I cannot as yet find the English translation of the BEA report though.

It’s 10 years forward from the actual crash – maybe the verdict may be less biased

Where have i ever indicated that it was so,I have in all comments said it was a cover-up to Save face for AF and the government and still firmly believe so

It’s 10 years since the tragic crash.

Maybe the verdict from the Palace du Justice will be more open to pronounce a verdict after hearing evidence that so far has been ignored or classed as low priority and as I hope the case may be referred to an independent higher court in the EU.

I repeat what I have said that it isn’t much good bashing the French (the present elected French Government, Air France and Airbus) for possible ommissions of the past.

Let’s instead hope for an impartial court hearing and verdict and some comfort and closure for the bereaved.

As your emotions and feelings are so strong please have a heart for the bereaved even 10 years on since the tragedy.

Do you not think as Europeans they don’t want justice – the truth?

My last post re A320

Orig posted by PJ2 on pprune

The “Alpha prot” mode of the 320 is, of course, beyond the control of the crew but it is automatically disabled below 100′ RA.

The decision was made by Captain Asselin to do the fly-past above 100′ so he elected to permanently (for that flight only – it re-engages but only after the next landing), disengage the a/thr so it would not “spoil” a high angle of attack, gear-down, low-speed fly-past demonstration by engaging.

The fly-past was actually flown at and below 30′ ostensibly because the grass strip was so narrow and so short that height perception made the field “smaller” and so they flew lower. Cockpit planning and discipline issues arise here but we won’t be distracted from your question. When it became rapidly apparent to the First Officer first, that they were below the trees, Asseline “firewalled” (to TOGA) the thrust levers and the N1’s, which were at about 29% or IDLE thrust, took the expected six to eight seconds to accelerate. They almost made it – another second or so and the airplane would have skimmed the treetops and the engines would have not have swallowed as much foliage. Academic though it may be, to some extent the fbw (yaw damper) kept the aircraft relatively straight as it descended through the trees.

That is the extent of the “intervention” with the autothrust and was never a “computer problem” as so many claim.

I only post these things because there is so much misinformation on the internet and it is difficult to know what to believe sometimes.
PJ2 also says that the captain eventually did agree that it was late application of TOGA power that caused the accident,the systems would appear to have worked as advertised !The report also said that the narrow runway at the flying club airfield may have misled the crew visually into thinking they were still above 100′ agl .

rgds baz

Just out of general interest,sorry for more thread hijack – but what does the panel think of this trace from the Habsheim A320 ?

+1

I hope you do not mean that the French are supposedly covering up because there were so few actual French nationals on board.

Where have i ever indicated that it was so,I have in all comments said it was a cover-up to Save face for AF and the government and still firmly believe so

First off it wasn’t full of French passengers but 96 German , 1 American 2 Danish and 1 Austrian, not unless we are talking about another crash that’s been covered up

Apologies in not referring to the passenger list as Europeans, but the flight and cabin crew were French and so were those killed on the ground and the Concorde was French owned.

I hope you do not mean that the French are supposedly covering up because there were so few actual French nationals on board.

The crash occured in France and also within EU jurisdiction.
Tragic though the crash was it was somewhat a ‘gory blessing’ that it fell in Goness (relatively sparsely populated area near Hotel) and not a few kilometres further forward – which would have taken out a whole swathe of densely populated areas.

There is a much stronger case for the bereaved European relatives to have this referred to a higher court outside France within the EU if the ruling from the Palais du Justice does not open up all the creases.

I personally have never had any cause for concern if I have flown Air France when I am not on a convenient BA route.

Sorry guys …the explanation for certain accidents is simply more mundane than some people would wish.
The A320 was put into a situation that it should never have been anywhere near,the pilot descended into a small airfield with both engines at flight idle,got low and slow (look out of the window boys),I do not know whether the a/c was switched to manual or not (I have heard that it was) but anybody with any experience around jets knows for sure that it could take 11 or so seconds to get full power from idle (11 secs = a lifetime when you have a problem and are on the wrong side of the drag curve).
I am not saying that the french did not tamper with the black boxes…I am just saying that the accident would not have happened if common sense had been applied.
One problem displaying a large a/c might be that at low speeds and high angle of attack,the flight deck is the ‘highest’ part of the a/c and perhaps it can mislead a crew sometimes !?

First off it wasn’t full of French passengers but 96 German , 1 American 2 Danish and 1 Austrian, not unless we are talking about another crash that’s been covered up :rolleyes:

Im not tarring the French ,but I’m saying that those in Charge are unable accept what they did wrong and are unwilling to admit Guilt,Every major disaster were Airfrance , Airbus have been involved the final reports have been suspect with the Government aiding and abetting a cover up so that they look good in the eyes of the world

Safety is paramount in the airline Industry and should always come before profit ,but there are those who think the opposite and will go to any length to protect themselves including cover ups

the concordski bit was the TU-144 crash at Paris in 1970something, saw a documentary about that, the french would not admit a fighter aircraft of theirs was in vicinity and made the TU-144 turn abrubtly, which caused a framework failure, and break up.

Just a small point on the Tu-144 crash – I seem to remember a documentary (maybe the same one) tentatively concluding that the crash was caused by compressor stall – starving the engines of airflow, as a result of exceeding the flight envelope (due to the mysterious Mirage or hot-dogging – we may never know)… the result of which was loss of control and structural failure.

The Mirage was alleged to be up in order to take photos of the canards in operation.

Now here’s an interesting point !

another interesting fact
if you look on air safety network and search under countries, the uk listings are littered with minor concorde incidents, while the french have only a few for the operational period, do we the brits own up too easily, or is the network US based and wants to show concorde in a bad way?

You have raised one heck of an interesting point !

Let’s face it which nation stopped Concorde at the outset from proliferating sales and routes ?

The same nation scrapped it’s own SST programme and instead lauded and launched the ‘jumbo’ Boeing 747 (a very reliable workhorse – in fact excellent would be a sensible description).

Concorde too had the same longevity as the 747 and sadly it has been mothballed. With safety upgrades it may have gone on for another 20 years or more.

Let’s toast in sadness – Concorde – an aircraft with a magnificient design which included such futuristic engineering feats that it is a ‘technical wonder of the modern world’.

Concorde will never be forgotten.

Please do not make too much heavy weather of purely ‘bashing’ the French

Have a heart guys and please don’t tar all French people with the same brush you are using on the results of the investigation.

It was primarily French passengers, a French Flight and Cabin Crew that perished in this tragic disaster.

For a moment do you not think that the bereaved French people and the wider French public would not wish justice – the truth?

Yesterday 14 July 2010 was Bastille Day – a French national holiday and history can repeat itself.

The Palais de Justice decision and the very eloquent and learned French lawyer representing Continental Airlines may force a decision to refer this on to a further re-investigation by a higher court in Brussels/Strassbourg.

Do not for a minute imagine that the French people aren’t concious of families, children, the elderly and all of their safety.

It is with very close French friends that I drove past Goness (the crash site) after the crash of AF4590. We all had lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes as we spoke afterwards.

What is evident from everything all of you are saying is that aircraft manufacturers, airline operators and airports authorities must prioritise putting essential safety first before profit.

Let’s put some faith in the Palais de Justice.

How can I read to much into the comments, they’re stated as fact?
Maybe you are right and it our differences of opinion come from our different view points, but I was disapointed and at times enraged.

Also agree with earlier points of the metal strip being carried along on the runway, Spitfireman and I have experience in dealing with debris recovery from runways (his far more vast than mine) and you can’t accept at face value the comment of the fire appearing to have started before the point of where the strip would have been hit.

Sorry about that link, it looks like the BBC website has moved it, I will try and find it again, it is good.

Edit, try this,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/…00/7989702.stm

If that dosen’t work, here is a Key thread with the link on,
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=100926&highlight=concorde

Perhaps you’re reading a little too far into comments like the “overnight” one? I don’t think that was intended to come across quite as you seem to have taken it. As for constantly dragging it down as a result of one crash, I actually felt the very opposite is what this program did. It talked about the accident but I thought it put the aircraft across in an extremely positive way, and the fact they had so many people involved directly with the aircraft expressing their thoughts and feelings goes a long way to showing that in my opinion. As I say though, opinions differ.

The link you gave isn’t actually working, but I’d be very interested to see it.

We watched the same programme alright.
I am truely proud of Concorde and always have been, long before programmes like this came about which constantly drag this fabulous creation of British and European engineering expertise through the mill of that one accident which was of no fault of the design.
Why is it that any Concorde programme has to dwell on the accident, it had so many achievements yet docu makers have to rely on that tragic day to sell a programme. I realise it should be mentioned, but it shouldn’t always be the main target of the programme.
Narration was poor, if an argument was made one way, there was no real argument put up against it or real demonstraion of facts behind some of the points. Also simplistic things like ‘overnight it went from being the worlds safest to unsafest aeroplane’ & ‘at Mach one a normal aircrafts wings come off’, what tosh.
Far better documentaries about on this superb bird, all of which were made prior to the accident.

Now if you are really proud of Concorde, watch this lovely little piece, http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/…00/7989702.stm
No cliche, no awfully created simulations, just a great little film on the last Concorde being completed at Filton. I actually wept.