Air France
– Concorde story: -
The only
supersonic passenger aircraft the Concorde met with a fatal accident in the
year 2002 in France.
That accident caused the entire Concorde fleet to be grounded permanently and
the most cherished aircraft in the history of aviation now rests in museum
only.
The factors
contributed to the accident were:-
1.
There were 109 passengers and crew on board the aircraft
2.
To name a few passengers, there was entire 3 generations of a
family, a teacher husband & wife, who saved for over 20 years to fly in
Concorde for the very first time.
3.
The Pilot ordered to repair the reverse engine thrusters in one
of the engine just before the flight was about to take off
4.
This delayed the take off by about an hour
5.
Just before the flight took off, a DC 10 aircraft took off from
the same run way
6.
A piece of metal around 2 ft long fell off from the DC 10
aircraft’s engine
7.
After the delay and repairs the Concorde was on its runway ready
for take off
8.
Concorde was traveling @ 320 km/hr in the runway when the
flight’s tyre trod over the metal piece
9.
The tyre bursts and a piece of tyre weighing 5 kgs hits the
underside of the flight’s wings
10.
The impact triggers a shock wave and the fuel starts to flow out
of the wing
11.
The tyre impact had also ruptured an electric line guiding the
landing lever. The flowing fuel triggers a spark and both the left engines
catch fire
12.
Control tower alerts the pilot about the fire in the wings, but
Concorde has already reached the 320 km/hr mark where the flight is committed
to take off. No plane can abort the take off at such speeds. Moreover Concorde
needs 3000 m to stop whereas the remaining airstrip was only 2000 m
13.
Within seconds of take off the aircraft stalls and falls above a
hotel killing 4 people in the hotel
In over 20 years of its flight
Concorde has never met with any fatal accidents, apart from few ruptured tyres.
Aircrafts are still the safest
means of transportation. Even in the above scenario, if one watches closely all
the above factors working in synchronization have contributed to the aircraft’s
accident. Even if one factor was not to happen then most of the passengers
could have survived.
Human error is the single most
important factor that contribute to accidents
The accidents that happen could
be explained as below: -