First report into Concorde crash

PARIS -- A preliminary report into last month's Concorde tragedy in which 113 people died is to be released on Thursday, including details of the pilot's last words and radio conversations with air traffic controllers.

The 88-page report by French air accident investigators at the Bureau Enquetes-Accidents will be an initial assessment of technical issues surrounding the crash of the Air France plane and will not look to attribute blame.

A BEA spokeswoman said: "This report will draw togather the facts as we know them so far. The full report will take up to a year to publish.

"A transcript of the pilot's last words will be released as part of the report."

British authorities have been co-operating with French officials and a spokesperson for the UK Air Accident Investigations Branch said he expected the report to be an assessment of the investigation so far.

Initial inquiries have pinpointed a tyre blow-out as being at the heart of the July 25 accident, with a piece of scrap metal lying on the runway believed to have set off the tragic chain of events.

It is thought that fragments of the tyre ruptured fuel tanks in the left wing which then ignited.

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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BEA
UK Air Accident Investigations Branch
Civil Aviation Authority
Air France
British Airways
BEA
Civil Aviation Authority

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