The Concorde disaster

What happened to flight 4590?

On July 25 2000, during an Air France Concorde takeoff, a piece of debris from a DC-10 Continental flight a few minutes before cut and ruptured one of the Concorde's left tires. As the aircraft accelerated down runway 26R at 401 kph, this tire disintegrated and a large piece entered the underside of the left wing, roughly where fuel tank 5 was located causing a rupture of the fuel which ended up catching fire and the end of the plane and the 109 aboard and 4 on the ground.

How did this happen? (The story Part 1)

While the Concorde had just started taxing out to the end of runway 26R, a DC-10 aircraft was just taking off when a small metal strip of about 43 centimetres falls off the right engine and onto the runway. There was no warning and no indication that this was on the runway. It happens only a few minutes before the Concorde took off, so there were no runway inspections before Concorde flew. At 2:42 at the end of the runway the pilot advances the four thrust levers towards the takeoff thrust required, this causes the four mighty Olympus engines to roar into full takeoff thrust with full reheat engaged. And the aircraft starts accelerating down the runway. Six seconds later the pilot calls out “V1” meaning there is now no chance of stopping from this takeoff at the speed they are going. They are now 35 seconds into the flight. It was about this time that flight 4590 ran over the small metal strip and in less than half a second the third tire on the left gear disintegrated. Some of the tire debris was thrown up towards the wing of the plane, roughly where fuel tank 5 is situated. Now those pieces have hit the underside of the wing with such a force that some of the left wing buckled -bent- inwards and the area around it to bend outwards causing an enormous pressure wave inside of the tank and since that tank was full there was nowhere for that fuel to go but besides where the rubber impacted causing a rupture outwards of the fuel tank. Now dozens of letters of jet fuel are gushing out of the wing and then colliding with engine 1 & 2’s intake and some broken wires causing the fuel to catch fire and ignite. Behind the jet, there is now a trail of flames coming from under tank 5.

About 3 seconds later engines 1 and 2 are starting to lose thrust because the engines are being choked by the gasses from the fire. 5 seconds later engine 1 is beginning to recover but engine 2 has now shut down and the aircraft is now yawing -turning- very hard to the left from the thrust difference, it is also now a 20 meters off the ground when the first engine fire alarm goes off and they shut off engine number 2 and now have no more thrust on the left side.

Ghost fire (The story Part 2)

What they do not know is that the fire is not in the engine, it's on the wing, and the engine’s fire sensors can feel the heat through the metal. The Concorde is now completely airborne and engine 1 is starting to recover, but with engine 2 dead they don’t have enough speed to climb so they stay at an altitude of around 400 feet -130 meters-. The fire has been burning for approximately 1 minute and a half now and the left aileron is melting from the heat, the jet starts to roll but the pilot keeps it in the air. Engine 1 then gives out and shuts down; all the remaining thrust is on the left wing causing flight 4590 to roll and ends up at around a 100-degree angle to the left and ends up crashing into the l'Hôtelissimo Hotel & Restaurant at 2:44. There were no survivors.

Could this have been prevented?

Flight 4590 could not have stopped before the end of the runway, but the crash could have been prevented. If the airport had been keeping watch for debris on the runway they would have seen the small reflective strip of metal, or they could have even had a small car go down the runway and check for debris. Or even better, the maintenance team at Continental could have bolted the metal strip in the DC-10 engine properly! If they had bolted in the metal strip properly, 113 innocent travellers could have been saved!

If it didn’t happen, could Concorde still be flying?

If all the Concordes didn’t get suspended, -which ultimately led to their downfall- my research told me that all 14 aircraft would have most likely kept flying for another two or three years and maybe even four if they were lucky before they would eventually run out of money from the high costs of maintenance and fuel used. So the answer is unfortunately no. Even if Air France Concorde 4590 did not crash, the Aérospatiale’s Concorde would still eventually run out of money and be retired, sadly.

How can we improve airline safety for the future?

The ways we can improve aircraft from the disaster of flight 4950 is we need to stress test aircraft more, push everything major to their breaking point, tires, wings, fuel tanks, observe what happens and improve. See how strong they are and upgrade them if needed. We also need more safety measures in place for crashes and engine failures and maybe even people on top of the control tower with binoculars looking along the runway for things that might put an aircraft in danger as well as looking at the planes while they take off if there isn't enough time for runway checks. Or the aircraft maintenance engineers could do proper inspection and maintenance of aircraft. Not calling out anyone in particular… *cough,* *cough,* Continental. This means checking the outside of the plane for any loose screws, dents in the body and loose metal sheets. Then they look into the engine and make sure it’s running fine and then look inside it for any broken parts to replace; then check the tires and see if they need to replace them.

Conclusion,

Could Concorde flight 4590 have been prevented? We looked at what the Concorde was, what happened during the flight, and what were the faults with Concorde, if 4590 didn’t crash would it still be flying? And how could we improve airline safety for the future? My answer is that Concorde flight 4590 could have 100% indeed been prevented if anyone had seen or reported the 43cm metal debris from the DC-10’s engine, or even better, the maintenance crew that had just worked on DC-10 that very day could have done a proper inspection of the engine as well as the plane and they would have found the metal strip loose and tightened it! It was a simple human error that brought down an engineering masterpiece. So sad. But what isn’t sad, a new company is making a new supersonic airliner! This company’s name is Boom and they are making 88 seater called Overture which should be flying passengers sometime in 2029 so at least look forward to that!