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In 1969, a groundbreaking vision of the future was presented to the public. In a few years, if all goes well, Concorde planes will become commonplace at airports around the world. Then there will be 130 passengers on board. Flight time will be halved. From London to New York, instead of 7 hours and 40 minutes, it takes only 3 hours and 25 minutes. The combination of these outdated footage and the futuristic aircraft looks strange. It's hard to believe that passengers 40 years ago, in a time when color television was a luxury, flew across the Atlantic at the speed of sound.
Concorde was ahead of its time, becoming an anomaly in the history of commercial flight and a product of government funding-a joint project between the British BAC and the French Aerospatiale. Its development was fully funded by the British and French governments to the tune of $2.8 billion. Concorde's legacy is marred by commercial failure, but this engineering marvel was a triumph of ingenuity. Nothing like it had flown before and has not flown since. Transforming a purely military technology into a luxurious flying experience required innovative thinking.
This is incredible engineering on the Concorde. Concorde engineers faced unique challenges. Creating a supersonic aircraft is difficult even by military standards, but creating one that would satisfy wealthy customers is a completely different matter Thanks to aerial refueling, fuel efficiency is a secondary issue for the military. Passenger comfort in such cases is at best a secondary concern, and the cost of such limited-edition aircraft exceeds the budget of any commercial airline. These needs were reflected in the unique design of the Concorde. The elegant body hid powerful engines, developed from the iconic British military aircraft Avro Vulcan.
Fuel efficiency and supersonic flight are polar opposites, but these engines, the Rolls-Royce Olympus 593, were the most efficient engines ever built when flying at Mach 2. When these engines were introduced for the Avro Vulcan, they produced only 49 kilonewtons of thrust, but when adapted for the Concorde, their thrust more than tripled-to an impressive 169 kilonewtons 20% of this thrust increase was provided by installed afterburners-a technology usually used only in military aircraft. Afterburners work by injecting fuel directly into the hot exhaust of the turbine compartment under high pressure. Although air passes through the combustion chamber, only half of the oxygen is consumed, leaving unused
energy in the exhaust gases of these engines. To capture this energy, fuel can be injected directly into the turbine exhaust and ignited, effectively acting as a rocket stage of the engine, causing further expansion and acceleration of the exhaust gases through the nozzle. However, this system is useless without a controllable nozzle. Typical aircraft engines have a fixed nozzle because such aircraft must be efficient in a relatively narrow range of subsonic speeds, but Concorde, with its huge speed range, requires not one but two steerable nozzles to properly control the engine's power. The primary nozzle connects directly to the jet tube outlet and consists of lobe-like structures that can be closed or opened
to change the diameter, and therefore the area, of the jet outlet. When the afterburner, or "heater" as the British engineers called it, ignited, it caused a massive increase in pressure at the engine's outlet. This increase in pressure could cause flow "locking" in the engine, where areas of high pressure in front of areas of low pressure would prevent air from passing through the engine properly. To prevent this, the primary nozzle opens wider when afterburner is active to reduce pressure and ensure a constant mass flow of air through the engine. However, sometimes we really need to influence the flow in front of the nozzle. The Olympus 593 was one of the first in the world, predating the Pratt&Whitney J57 engine by
just a few months. The twin-shaft design meant that the engine contained two compressor sections driven by two turbine sections, each running on its own concentric shaft, allowing the two sections to run at different speeds. When the primary nozzle was activated, the change in pressure in the nozzle caused the low- pressure shaft to rotate faster or slower, providing control of the engine to operate at optimal rpm across a wide speed range. The function of the secondary nozzle is no less complex. The casement doors look like some kind of steampunk shield, and for good reason.
The force that the secondary nozzles had to withstand affected their appearance, as they had to withstand enormous loads at both supersonic and subsonic speeds, and could even close completely during landing, working as reverse boosters. By controlling these nozzles, the aircraft could carefully manipulate the exhaust velocity and thus maximize thrust, as together the pair acted as a steerable Laval nozzle. De Laval nozzles (convergent-divergent) are commonly used in rockets to accelerate combustion products to their optimal velocity and pressure. The opposing shapes are needed because air behaves completely differently at subsonic and supersonic speeds. For example, when subsonic air passes through a narrowing channel, it
accelerates with decreasing cross-sectional area up to a certain critical area, which is called the critical section or "throat". This is where Mach number 1 is reached. At this point, further acceleration of the air is impossible because the flow becomes blocked. Now, as you would expect, if the same subsonic flow passes through an expansion channel, the air slows down as the channel area increases This is the action of Bernoulli's principle. The strangest thing is that everything happens exactly the
opposite when air moves at supersonic speeds. A narrowing channel will lead to a decrease in speed, and an expanding one will lead to its acceleration. So, to maximize the acceleration of our exhaust gases, we first pass the subsonic air from the engine through a narrowing nozzle, the primary nozzle, until it reaches Mach 1 in the narrow part. Then we want it to pass through an expansion channel, a secondary nozzle, at supersonic speeds so it can continue to accelerate. These paired nozzles allow Concorde to carefully optimize the nozzle profile for different flight conditions-an amazing feat of engineering. The same principles were used for air intakes. No engine can operate with supersonic flow. The shock
waves that would arise inside the engine would cause complete chaos. Therefore, the Olympus 593 engine needed a way to slow down the supersonic air entering its unique square air intakes. These square inlets were designed to simplify the difficult task of creating uniform laminar subsonic flow for the engine compressors. Inside was a series of ramps and flaps that could open and close depending on the flight mode in which the air intake was located.
During takeoff, the engines needed all the air they could get to accelerate the plane enough for the bulky delta wings to create enough lift for takeoff. To direct as much air as possible into the engine, two adjustable ramps were retracted into a closed position. The excess air discharge flap before entering the engine remained open to allow additional airflow, while the two bypass flaps that directed air around the engine cooling duct were closed. The afterburners were also operational during takeoff, but shortly thereafter Concorde was to enter a noise reduction phase, during which the afterburners were turned off and power was reduced while the aircraft gained altitude. At this stage, the bypass flaps
open, allowing cooling air to pass along the outside of the engine. As speed increases, the primary and secondary nozzles adapt, gradually forming the ideal taper- expansion nozzle for supersonic cruise flight. In parallel with these changes in the nozzles, the inlet ramps are actuated, creating a narrowing inlet that slows and compresses the supersonic air entering the engine. Fuel consumption during supersonic flight is enormous, but this is due mainly to aerodynamic drag, not thermal efficiency. The supersonic air being pumped and compressed in the engines helped them tremendously to achieve high thermal efficiency. The
thermal efficiency of jet engines is largely determined by the degree of compression that the engine achieves. This is the pressure ratio between the engine inlet and the compressor outlet, which in the case of Concorde during flight is 80 to 1, an incredibly high figure. The high-efficiency GE NX engines on the Boeing 787 provide just 58 to 1. The two Olympus 593 engine shafts had seven compressor stages, each driven by a single-stage turbine. The low- and high-pressure compressors combined provided a compression ratio of 14 to 1-a moderately high ratio that provided average efficiency at subsonic speeds.
However, during cruise flight, the compression ratio increased to 80 to 1 as supersonic air was forced into unique square air intakes. This increased pressure ratio led to extreme temperatures inside the engine, requiring the use of heat-resistant alloys typically reserved for turbine blades. Titanium blades were used for the initial stages of the compressor, and heat-resistant nickel alloys were used for the even hotter subsequent stages Cooling the drive shaft bearings became another engineering challenge.
The increase in cooling lubricant flow was not sufficient to maintain a safe operating temperature for the bearings. A comparison of the original Olympus engines used on the Avro Vulcan and the Concorde engines indicates the changes that engineers were forced to make. The central bearing, located immediately behind the high-pressure compressor, is absent in the Olympus 593, and the drive shaft in front of it has a bottle-shaped shape, expanding into the new space between the bearings. This center bearing had to be removed due to the too high temperature in this area, directly behind the high-pressure compressor. But without the support of a bearing, the drive shaft became too flexible. To adapt to this change, the diameter of the
drive shaft had to be increased to increase rigidity. The Concorde is full of such strange design details. This is a solution to the unique engineering problems caused by the enormous cruising speed. To minimize fuel consumption, it was necessary to minimize the frontal cross-sectional area of the aircraft. Delta wings allow for a significant reduction in wingspan and reduce the drag that occurs during supersonic flight. However, this creates some problems for low-speed flight, where it is difficult to generate sufficient lift, making takeoff and landing difficult.
This is where the Concorde's reviving delta wings come to the rescue This is a form of folded delta wing consisting of two sections: the front has a greater sweep angle than the rear, and is connected by a smooth curve that transitions from concave to convex. This shape allowed Concorde to generate additional lift at low speeds through the use of vortex lift. During flight at high angles of attack, the separated airflow swirled over the wings, forming two stable cone-shaped vortices where airspeed was high and pressure was low, effectively creating lift. However, these high angles of attack, required for low speeds, created serious visibility problems for pilots, whose cockpit would have had a great view of the
sky if not for the iconic "down nose". The "dropped nose" was a unique solution, a mechanized nose that could be lowered by 12.5 degrees to provide pilots with a clear view of the runway during high-angle-of-attack maneuvers. The mechanism had four positions, which the pilot controlled using this lever. The upper position is the fully retracted position used during supersonic flight. The second position lowered a special heat-shielding visor, which was used to protect the cabin windows from heating during supersonic flights. When set in this position, the hydraulic drive of the visor retracted, forcing the visor to hide in the nose fairing.
Next was the 5° down position used for takeoff and taxiing, in which this hydraulic actuator was extended. And the final adjustment lowers the nose even lower to the 12.5° mark required for landing The aircraft also had a retractable tail landing gear, which was not needed during most takeoffs and landings, but was installed to protect the engines, which in other airliners would be the first to contact the ground in a tail impact Tail strikes are not uncommon, they usually occur during landing in difficult conditions. Some aircraft, such as the 777, also have retractable tail skid guards, as such an impact would at best result in expensive maintenance, and at worst, serious damage to the airframe and endanger the lives of passengers.
In fact, the tail strike caused the crash that claimed the largest number of lives of any single aircraft disaster in history. In 1985, a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 crashed in the mountains of Japan 7 years after being hit by a tail that had been improperly repaired. Given the high angles of attack required by Concorde to land, this protection was vital to the safety of the aircraft. The visor was necessary during supersonic flight because the nose of the aircraft heated up to a temperature of about 130 °C during cruise flight at an altitude of 60,000 feet, where the ambient temperature is usually about -56 °C. Concorde
went through several iterations of the design of this frontal protection. In the very first prototypes, the lower front windows were simply completely removed. But it turned out that pilots like to see where they are flying, so this was not an option for the production model. all-metal heat shield was initially considered for the nose section, which would have made forward visibility impossible during flight, which was considered unimportant. But, fortunately, the final version used these heat-resistant glass visors Dealing with such large temperature differences between takeoff and landing poses serious structural problems, especially with the flight frequency required for the financial viability of a commercial aircraft. The
thermal expansion caused by these temperatures caused the aircraft to lengthen by 20 cm during each flight. The fatigue that this heat stress could cause would eventually lead to catastrophic failure if not properly addressed. The first problem was finding a material that could handle this heat. Titanium, which was used for the SR-71, could have been used, but its cost and weight meant it was rejected early on. Ordinary aluminum would not withstand such conditions, but a special aluminum alloy, Hiduminium RR58, developed in Britain during World War II for the newly invented gas turbine engines, could.
This alloy is composed of copper, magnesium, silicon, iron, nickel, and titanium, with the remaining percentage being aluminum. Although this material was developed decades before Concorde, it had never been used in the industry before. Due to the lower average temperatures compared to its traditional use in gas turbine engines, but significantly longer service life requirements, parts also had to be manufactured using other technologies, such as cold-rolled sheets for the fuselage. Only this process affected the critical properties of the material, improving its heat resistance. Forged parts tend to have a larger crystal grain structure than rolled components, which helps forged parts resist creep of the internal crystal structure under
load and heat. To adapt this material for the Concorde's cold-rolled skin, Rolls-Royce engineers had to develop new manufacturing methods to maximize the grain size of these cold-rolled components. Manufacturing knowledge that has undoubtedly been used by Rolls-Royce for modern applications. Now that a suitable material had been developed, giving it a shape that would allow expansion became crucial. Most of this expansion was invisible to the Concorde crew and passengers. The interior panels could slide against each other, hiding the expansion from passengers and, importantly, preventing the build-up of stresses due to uneven expansion between the hot outer layer and the cool inner layer
The electrical wiring around the aircraft was made with a margin to prevent it from breaking during the expansion of the aircraft, and many components were corrugated, that is, they had a curved shape. This allowed these parts to stretch and straighten out the bends, like a spring. However, one compensation gap was quite noticeable to the Concorde crew. As the plane gained cruising speed, a gap began to form between the flight engineer's console and the cabin partition. The gap was so large that you could stick your hand through it, or, as had become tradition for " Concordes" going to rest, the flight engineer's cap was placed there, which was permanently clamped when the gap closed. As with the SR-71, this
constant cycle of expansion and compression caused serious problems with the fuel tank seals. To cope with expansion cycles, the sealant must be elastic. Even common plastic window seals in homes require this quality to prevent drafts from entering through small movements. The problem is that high temperatures over time make the sealants hard, and then, as the expansion cycles continue, they begin to crack and leak fuel. Although the temperatures encountered by the Concorde were significantly lower than those of the SR -71, it was still a maintenance problem. The Concorde used a high-temperature sealant called Viton, but even that hardened and cracked over time.
Therefore, approximately every 1,100 flight hours, about once a year, Concorde was sent for maintenance, which could last 3 weeks. Servicing the Viton seals was one of many necessary procedures. The fuel tanks were emptied and then ventilated for 24 hours so technicians could climb inside and manually inspect and replace the sealant. It was a huge job that often required technicians to work by touch, as access to tanks 5A and 7A at the farthest end of the wing was impossible. In total, Concorde had 13 separate fuel tanks, making full use of the large internal volume provided by the
delta-shaped wings. Without these fuel tanks, capable of holding 119,000 liters of fuel, Concorde would not have been able to cross the Atlantic and would have been completely useless. To put this volume into perspective: a typical Boeing 747 , the world record holder for the longest commercial flight, can only hold 34,000 liters of fuel. These fuel tanks also played a vital role in the control of the aircraft As speed increases, the wing's center of pressure, the point through which all lift acts , tends to shift rearward. This is not usually a significant problem for slower commercial airliners, but the Concorde's center of pressure shifted back by 1.8 meters, more than enough to cause serious control problems that would have caused
the plane to dive if it had not been taken into account. Typically, such a shift is compensated for by an elevator, which can stabilize the aircraft in pitch when the center of pressure changes. But Concorde had no horizontal tail, and installing elevons on the wing sufficient to compensate for this change would have resulted in a large amount of balancing drag at such high speeds. So Concorde engineers instead used the huge tanks they had at their disposal to solve this problem As the aircraft approached Mach 2, fuel began to be pumped from the forward balance tanks to the rear and collector tanks in the wing, moving up to 20 tons of fuel rearward and shifting the center of gravity to coincide with the shift in the
center of pressure. This allowed the aircraft to maintain balance without creating additional resistance from the rudders. An elegant solution using existing tools. Concorde is an icon in aviation history. I can't shake the strange feeling of nostalgia for a plane I never got to fly. Hundreds of thousands of passengers can see one of the last Concordes as they arrive and depart from Heathrow Airport. This Concorde, nicknamed "Alpha Bravo," made its last flight a month after the tragic crash of Air France Flight 4590. It was undergoing a major interior renovation when the decision was made to retire all Concordes, leaving the aircraft there indefinitely.
Alpha Bravo has been in limbo ever since, never receiving scheduled updates designed to prevent a disaster like Air France Flight 4590 from happening again. If you or your child spent years growing up on social media and have faced serious mental health issues, you need to hear this. A jury recently ordered Meta to pay millions for their role in developing and promoting addictive platforms. They knew that their apps could contribute to anxiety, depression, and body image issues, but they failed to communicate these risks, putting profit first. A recent historic verdict highlights the implications of these decisions. Now Morgan & Morgan is taking on the task of holding these platforms accountable for the
harm they caused. Follow the link in my profile to take a short test. You may be eligible for potential compensation of $1,000. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon on the northeastern outskirts of Paris, 100 passengers began boarding the world's fastest commercial plane. Walking through the narrow fuselage of the Concorde, where pairs of business class seats were located on either side Flight 4590 was a charter flight carrying mostly German passengers, embarking on an exciting journey through the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, and ultimately to Ecuador aboard the MS Deutschland. The flight crew consisted of the captain, a 53-
year-old pilot who had over 300 hours of flight time on Concorde. The co-pilot was a 50-year-old man who had over 2,000 hours of flight time on Concorde. And the flight engineer flew more than 900 hours on Concorde. At 14:34, ground control gave permission for takeoff from runway 26R, the longest at Charles de Gaulle Airport, which was necessary to accelerate the Concorde's heavy delta wings to takeoff speed. At 2:40 p.m., Air France flight 4590 lined up at the beginning of runway 26R, beginning its thrilling takeoff process. The only commercial aircraft in the world to use afterburners. After 20 seconds, the co- pilot announced that the speed had reached 100 knots. After another 6 seconds, the pilot shouted V1- point of no return. It
was no longer possible to abort the takeoff, as the runway was not long enough to stop in time. Just 2 seconds later, a loud bang was heard from the left wing, flames began to shoot out of the plane, and a moment later it crashed into a nearby hotel. Then began a multi-year investigation into the plane crash, during which the causes of the accident were determined from the wreckage using engineering analysis. This is a story about that. The challenge facing aviation investigators in such tragic cases is enormous. Concorde crashed into a small hotel and restaurant almost 10 km southwest of Charles de Gaulle Airport. The flames destroyed everything around the crash site, leaving investigators with a scattered, charred field of debris
that had to be pieced together. Investigators began by tidying up the crash site to find evidence of what happened. The downed trees north of the hotel indicated that the plane was going down while traveling in a southerly direction. Along this trajectory to the south, the wreckage of Concorde's powerful turbojet engines lay on the scorched earth The area was littered with large impact marks, and parts of the fuselage were embedded deep into the ground. Further south, the main cabin of the plane and the bodies of those tragically killed in the crash were found. To the east lay the crew cabin with its charred instruments Not all devices survived the flames, many of them were lost. However, some devices
still survived the disaster and high temperatures. The investigators recorded the final readings on the dials that could be read. This should have provided important information that would have helped uncover the causes during further investigation. While disassembling the plane's wreckage, they found the flight recorder-a device that stores critical flight data. A voice recorder was also found, allowing investigators to hear the final moments of the crew's lives. These audio recordings show a loud explosion shortly after the pilot shouted V1. At the same moment, the flight recorder recorded a sudden loss of speed and thrust in the number two engine on the left wing, followed almost immediately by the number one engine.
While engines one and two were losing power, the data showed that the aircraft continued to fly at a nearly constant angle of attack, without gaining altitude. While the loss of thrust on the left wing caused the plane to bank. These flight data and audio recordings provided a lot of evidence about what happened, but they left an important question unanswered. What was that loud sound that preceded the fire, and what caused it? To find more evidence, investigators turned their attention to the runway.
Even without the data records, the scorched concrete painted a vivid picture of the final moments of Concorde's flight. From the charred grass and damaged lights, it was clear that the Concorde had lost control and veered left. While uneven marks on the concrete and pieces of rubber indicated damage to the left tire Along the charred path, the plane left several more important clues needed to continue the investigation. In addition to the damaged rubber tire, investigators were interested in two other items. A mysterious titanium strip with unevenly drilled holes and an undamaged fragment of the plane no larger than a sheet of paper.
This thin metal strip surprised them. Unevenly drilled holes are uncommon in this industry. This prompted investigators to try to match this 42 cm long strip to any Concorde component, but they found nothing in the design documentation They concluded that this strip was not part of the plane and was there before it took off. The logical next step was to carefully check all flights departing from the same strip to determine where this metal strip could have come from. Flight 4590 departed at 2:30 p.m. Investigators studied all the technical documentation for the planes that took off after 1:00 p.m.
One of many documents pointed them in the right direction. A document was found on a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operating a Continental flight 5 minutes before the Air France plane took off, mentioning a metal wear strip. Technical documentation indicated that the plane had undergone repairs on this strip just a month before the incident in Tel Aviv. The same document confirmed that the maintenance did not meet production standards. To confirm, investigators searched for this DC-10 and found that it lacked a strip with the same unevenly drilled holes. The perpetrator's fingerprints matched the crime scene.
Investigators concluded that a few minutes before the scheduled departure of Flight 4590, the Continental plane lost its metal strip on the runway. Significantly, a 32 cm long cut was found in the rubber debris found on the runway Although it was tempting to link this 42 cm long metal strip to the cut in the tire, investigators could not immediately say that this was the cause. To confirm, investigators created a mock Concorde-a cart adapted to fit the plane's new wheel, loaded with 25 tons to simulate the weight of the airliner. And indeed, the stripe cut the tire exactly as it was visible in the wreckage after the crash.
However, this only explains the cause of the tire explosion. Most importantly, it doesn't explain how a tire explosion could have led to a catastrophic fire. After all, this accident was not the first time that a Concorde had a tire blow out during takeoff. During its 30-year operating history, the Concorde had 57 tire failures. 22 of these events occurred during takeoff, and 19 were caused by foreign objects. Twelve of these incidents involved structural damage and six involved fuel tank ruptures, but none resulted in a fire similar to that on Flight 4590. One incident deserves special attention. On June 14, 1979, an Air France Concorde took off from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., bound for Paris During takeoff, one of the tires exploded and
punctured three fuel tanks. This led to a fuel leak at a rate of 4 kg per second. Fortunately, the crew noticed the damage, and 24 minutes after takeoff they landed safely at Dulles Airport. The report on the results of this incident noted that the risk of fire after the tanks were punctured was low. They stated that the low rate of fuel leakage combined with the lack of ignition sources did not create a significant fire risk. It was also noted that even in the event of a leak, the location of the tanks would promote fuel dispersion rather than accumulation. Photos and videos of the Concorde in flames contrast sharply with the findings of that previous investigation.
This, of course, raises questions. What was special about this flight that led to such a terrible outcome? To answer this question, investigators needed to determine the rate of fuel leakage on Flight 4590. Visual evidence obtained from video recordings and photographs of the crash provided the first clues. Using these images, investigators were able to estimate the size of the flames trailing behind the Concorde's wing: 50 m long, 3 m in diameter, and 10 cm thick. They were able to estimate the fuel leakage rate required to sustain such a fire at 60 kg per second. One of the instruments that survived the disaster confirmed this figure. Knowing the initial fuel volume, simple calculations using a fuel level indicator
stuck in its final position confirmed a leak rate of 60 kg per second-15 times the leak of 4 kg per second during the previous incident at Juvisy Airport. This indicates a completely different fuel leakage mechanism. It was here that a third piece of evidence, found on the runway, helped investigators solve the mystery of the disaster. A piece of fuel tank measuring 30 by 30 cm was found on the runway. This fragment hid the answer to what had happened. To the untrained eye, this piece of metal is unremarkable. Coated on one side with Concorde's white heat-resistant paint and on the other with reinforcing ribs along its entire length, it contained enough detail to establish exactly which part of the plane it came from.
Fifth fuel tank, directly above the chassis. Investigators further noted that the fragment was not burned at all, indicating that it fell off before the fire started. To put together the final piece of the puzzle, investigators needed a materials science expert. To the untrained eye, the surface of a metal fracture may not tell much, but to a fracture mechanics specialist, it tells a whole story. The investigators' report noted that the tears in the thin skin were mostly dull. The rupture surface was at an angle of 45°, indicating the static nature of the damage To understand the significance of this moment, we need some knowledge of fracture mechanics. Why does a 45° tear surface indicate a static tear
? Let's look at a few examples with different materials subjected to different types of loading and see how the geometry of their fractures changes. Investigators knew that the aluminum used in the tank was a plastic material. If we take a plastic material and apply a load to it, as the name suggests, the sample will deform as the load increases. This leads to a phenomenon called necking, where the material thins until it can no longer support the load and collapses. This leaves a characteristic 45° angle on the damaged part. Often in such cases you can see a cup-cone type surface, again at an angle of 45°. These types of surfaces
only occur in plastic materials under the influence of stretching. If a different type of load, such as torsion, were applied to the sample, the material would fail at a 90° angle. Examination of the fracture surface of this fragment told the experts working on the case a whole story. The hole in the tank was not caused by a puncture, i.e., the tire physically puncturing the tank. This indicated a rupture caused by increased pressure inside the tank. A piece of rubber hit the underside of the wing with enough force to deform the tank, causing its walls to bend inward while adjacent sections bulged outward.
This was a serious problem because fuel is not compressible, and since it was the beginning of the flight, the tanks were full. The resulting pressure wave hit the protruding areas and threw out a piece of the tank , which was found on the runway. And a hole of that size was capable of causing a fuel leak, enough to cause the flames seen in the footage of the tragic accident. The stage was set. A poorly secured metal strip caused the pressurized tire to burst and hit the underside of the wing, which in turn caused a powerful pressure wave inside the tank that ruptured it, causing a catastrophic and tragic loss of power and an uncontrolled descent of the aircraft. A
ten-year legal battle began between Air France and Continental, during which they took turns blaming each other, culminating in a 2010 court ruling fining Continental 1 million euros. It was planned to add Kevlar liners to the fuel tanks to prevent similar ruptures in the future, as well as to relocate and reinforce potential electrical ignition sources in this area. New damage-resistant tires were also introduced However, these modifications meant little to the financially unstable Concorde.
This plane crash was the final nail in the coffin of the airline. Due to high ticket prices and low demand for flights, which became even lower after the disaster, Concorde proved financially unprofitable, prompting British Airways and Air France to cancel their supersonic flight programs. The end of an era marked by a tragic catastrophe.
