Investigators say burst tire precipitated deadly Concorde crash

PARIS -- Air accident investigators have confirmed in a preliminary report published Thursday that a burst tyre set off the chain of events that caused an Air France Concorde to crash killing 113 people.

The report by the French Air Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) said it could not rule out the possibility of a similar crash if circumstances were to be repeated.

The report said: "The July 25 accident shows that the destruction of a tyre, an event that we cannot say will not recur, had catastrophic consequences in a short period of time, preventing the crew from rectifying the situation."

The 76-page report published by France's Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) verified expert speculation that the burst tyre was the first link in a chain of events that led to a fuel tank being ruptured and a catastrophic fire.

It also confirmed that a metal strip, probably from another airplane, had been found on the runway.

Accident investigators have speculated since the beginning of the investigation that this 43-centimetre (16.93-inch) strip caused the tyre to explode.

While the report confirmed a metal strip had been recovered from the runway, it stopped short of drawing a definitive conclusion on the cause of the disaster.

The dramatic final exchanges between the crew of the doomed Air France Concorde and air traffic controllers was also published as part of the report.

An air traffic controller is heard warning the crew of the fire trailing the Concorde as it took from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and giving the all-clear for an emergency landing.

A few seconds later the Concorde pilot said: "Too late."

Investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder at the site soon after the crash and have been painstakingly reconstructing the plane's left wing.

Earlier this month British and French air safety officials grounded Concordes until concerns about tyre blow-outs are addressed.

Derek Blackall, from the UK's Civil Aviation Authority, said Concordes had suffered 70 previous tyre bursts since entering service in 1976, seven of them rupturing fuel tanks in the wings.

The crash shortly after take-off from Paris' Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, which killed 109 people on board and four on the ground, was the first fatal accident involving the supersonic craft.

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French Air Accident Investigation Bureau
UK Air Accident Investigations Branch
Civil Aviation Authority
Air France
British Airways

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