The court ruled that the crash was caused by a piece of metal left on the runway after falling from a Continental jet. Investigators said this caused a tyre-burst in the Concorde, which in turn ruptured a fuel tank.

Perhaps the cause of the accident lay in both in the stray piece of metal and the fact that Concorde should prove so vulnerable to stray pieces of metal?:confused:
Generally speaking, most other airliner types hardly ever catch fire or explode upon contact with a piece of metal lying on the runway (except for a tyre or two)? After all, Concorde has had a history of difficulties when taking off and landing.

Maybe the families of the passengers should sue the makers of Concorde and Air france of the Concorde for producing such a “possibly flawed” aircraft. Other companies have been sued for a lot less – ask Audi, Toyota or McDonalds.

For a moment there, I thought that perhaps Pakistan had transferred some of its old F-104As to China in the 1970s – what was the fate of PAF Starfighters?

I googled “F-105 Yugoslavia” in order to find out where I read this information – it was an old thread on ‘MP.net’. The poster couldn’t actually support his statement, and I guess it isn’t true that Yugoslavia had any interest in the Thud. I’ll be more careful in future.:o:o

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?108664-F-105/page2

Good pictures of the Thud on that thread though…:cool:

why would the Israelis be so afraid of the Chinese getting their hands on Israeli technology – didn’t the Israelis try to sell their Phalcon AWACS system to China before, until the sale was blocked by the Americans?

Would be hardly surprising, the Me 262 (as was the Me 109) was produced in Czechoslovakia in the post war period, was it not?

I agree with you absolutely. I wasn’t trying to infer that the Il-76 was a less safer aircraft than other comparative types, it’s been endlessly repeated on this forum that it’s the nature of the country or environment in which the aircraft is operated in, rather than the specific aircraft type that effects any particular aircraft’s type safety record and reputation.
For example, 3 Il-76s have been lost in Iran in the last 8 years out of only a handful of types operated there, but this must surely reflect the abysmal safety record of aviation in this country. On the other hand, the Indian air force has been operating around 15 or so Il-76s for the last 30 years without a single loss or fatality. The IAF has chosen the Il-76 as the platform for their AWACS – I don’t think the Indians would investin several hundred million dollars worth of electronics and then put it on board if they didn’t have complete faith in the Ilyushin’s reliability and safety – or would they?

Masood Raza, a Karachi district government official, told CNN affiliate GEO News in Pakistan that the pilot appeared to deliberately bring the plane down in a less densely populated residential area in order to save lives.

“If the plane would have crashed in a (more crowded) residential area, it would have been a very big disaster for the city of Karachi,” Raza said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/pakistan.plane.crash/index.html?hpt=T2

How could they possibly know that?

Having moved to Germany in the last year or so, I’ve become innured to the local telly (good for listening practice). About 6 months ago or more a classic ‘Bud Spencer’ movie loomed upon my screen – they’re a sort of cheesy budget Spaghetti western movie set in a more contempory America. This one was made in the Seventies and was called the ‘The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid’. Some time into the film and the action happens on a Georgia ANG base, suddenly I was treated to the sight of loads of Republic F-105s in the picture – one of their last postings before the type’s retirement in the early Eighties. I’ve got a soft spot for the Thud, I think it’s one of the coolest and most important types ever to serve in the USAF. Does anyone know of any other movie with the Thud in it, I can’t think of any?:confused:

Also in the film we got to see USCG helis – that funny single-engined baby version of the Sikorsky S-61, the S-62, and the HH-3F Pelican.

The S-62 is something exotic to me – not many built…