Mega Disasters - Crash of the Concorde

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Concord the airliner that makes supersonic travel a reality sleek and graceful flying twice the speed of sound a symbol of prestige with a perfect safety record 113 people will perish in just 120 sentence now using cutting-edge computer technology we reveal exactly what went wrong Europe France Paris July 25 2000 shall the Gaulle Airport 12:30 in the afternoon 100 men women and children check-in for flight AF four five nine oh they come from all over Germany and are expecting the trip of a lifetime a dream holiday it starts with a supersonic flight on Concorde to New York then a luxury cruise in the Caribbean Concord is a plane like no other elegant luxurious and above all superfast flying at more than 2,200 kilometers per hour Concorde Lynx North America to London or Paris in three and three-quarter hours con courts unique shape with a pencil-thin cabin and vast at delta wings enable her to race across the sky at 3 kilometers every 6 seconds John Hutchinson has flown Concorde for 15 years best way of describing it is simply to say that it was a thoroughbred it was a beautiful responsive powerful airplane like I don't know Kentucky Derby winner if you like by 1:30 all of the passengers are checked in for their supersonic trip the pilot captain Christian Marty is already in the cockpit preparing for the flight the holidaymakers are in good hands 54 year old Mark T is one of Air France's most experienced pilots an adventurer of extraordinary talents in 1982 Christian Marty was the first Frenchman to win sir across the Atlantic he's a national celebrity on board Concorde captain Marty runs through his pre-flight check his air traffic controller is the experienced geologic to arrives to start his afternoon shift I was on GTL the southern control tower of Paris Airport shaunduvall this particular day was not supposed to work one of my colleagues the day before asked me for a transfer of ship so he did my morning shift and I did this afternoon but the change of shift comes an unexpected bonus Jewish law is now the controller responsible for Conchords departure the Concord is one of the most beautiful planar I've ever seen whether the line is pure I really like to watch this plane landing taking off during his pre-flight check captain Marty learns that engine number two has a technical fault a small part needs replacing it isn't serious but with Concord safety is always paramount after 40,000 flights and 900,000 flying hours there's never been a fatality the repair delays Conchords departure by one power 3:54 the passengers start to board among them are the Ike Family Christian and Andrea are their two young children Maximilian and Caterina Klaus and Margaret France Anna both schoolteachers who saved for the trip for 20 years ordinary families off on an extraordinary adventure at 4:30 5:00 in the afternoon Concord is ready to depart anticipation on board mats as the supersonic jet taxes to the runway and the controls are geo modular clears Air France flight four five nine over takeoff on runway 26 right it's 4:40 in the afternoon so far four passengers and crew everything is normal captain Marty lines up the plane at the start of the runway ready to release the power of Conchords for rolls-royce engines Ksenia pilot John Hutchinson a moment like this is always special as you open the throttles up full power you feel this huge surge of power the small of their back as their pen accelerates down the runway and you just get the feeling that the one to do at that point is to get in there as quickly as possible into its natural environment in the control tower she looked last monitors for takeoff I was watching the people getting a power on the runway because it was so nice to see that it's very every place we go the beginning is quite slow and again the speed Concord accelerates down the 4000 meter runway it passes through 320 kilometres per hour using computer graphics we recreate what happens next for Jewish land it's a moment of sheer horror shannaenealy I saw a flame just behind the body of the aircraft I jumped on my mic to say F once 4 5 9 0 you have frames behind you captain Marty's cannot see the flames but accelerating through 328 km/h Concorde is committed to the takeoff there are only 2,000 meters of runway left the Concorde needs 3,000 meters to have any chance of stopping safely after I speak whatever is the situation deplane us to take off he could not abort the takeoff I was watching the the frames I saw the nose of the Concorde lifting up at 4:43 and 15 seconds captain Marty pulls on the control stick Concord takes to the air this is how Concorde flight a at 4:59 Oh appears the witnesses Martine born he works in an office on the western edge of the airport at 4:44 she sees a terrifying sight I was looking out of my window and I saw Concorde taking off very slowly with the back of the plane on fire I was really afraid because of the flames I was convinced when the plane was going to explode right here and spongers the office the stricken airliner flies directly overhead close by where Martin works courier Emmanuel Vera mignon is driving his van past the end of the runway don't worry ma CDT & Conquer went over I had the window open and I was wearing a polo shirt and I can tell you that the heat the claim is belching out multiparty my shirts I could really feel the heat on the grass while captain Marty struggles with the controls to gain altitude out of his vision flames engulfed the left wing the sickening sight is caught on camera by the wife of a truck driver it is the only video footage ever captured showing Concorde on fire it'll prove to be a vital link in the investigation at Arras Airport a supersonic Concorde has just taken off but now the plane is on fire and 109 people on board are facing peril the next 69 seconds will be critical for 43 and 30 seconds Concord is struggling to remain in the air it's only 30 meters off the ground and the crippled plane is on a collision course the town of gun s and its 25,000 people lie directly in its path driving towards the petrol station she owns ingen s is Christine Turpin well I was returning home when I saw a place it was Concord with fire coming out to the Boniface I slowed down and slow down played in flames captain Marty is running out of options Conchords left-wing is disintegrating businessman Patrick Tess is directly in the plane's heart - the for nearly from I was in my office talking to an agent that the American almost surely peacenik the winner in a small runway issue and I was interrupted by an incredible noise it was on fire and it was listing one Concord lurches to the left the plane stalls and plunges to the ground it's 4:45 it's the moment every air traffic controller dreads jalaja reaches for his mic i've called their friends and I said errands for five 9:02 you hear me I said it twice there was no answer the supersonic jet loaded with fuel and 109 people on board crashes right on top of a hotel on the outskirts of Ganesh a terrifying fireball tears through the building British teacher Alice Brooking has just checked into a first-floor room so I went straight for the door of the room that I was in saw the flames so there was no way out by us there I left across the room left customers to the window so luckily that the receptionist was already down in the carpark underneath me and he just said you have to jump at the same time Christine Turpin also witnesses the explosion and fears the worst it fell and from where I was I thought it had landed on the gas station and I thought because my daughter and the girl who works me were there that they were all dead what they do as Christine Turpin drives in a passenger armrest falls onto the petrol station within eight minutes of the crash dozens of fire engines and ambulances race to the scene appalling tragedy not just for those on Concorde but for those in the hotel Regional Fire Chief Colonel Fabrizio van leads the rescue whilst driving there were many things going through my mind the important thing for me was to divide the operation into two separate parts event one the aircraft crash extinguishing the fire and the rescue of any survivors and to organising treatment for the wounded before they were evacuated to hospital the intensity of the fire is so great that it'll take three hours to bring it under control as these TV news images show the charred remains of the airliner in the hotel are unrecognizable the rescue attempts are futile 113 people died four from the hotel and 109 passengers and crew in Concord three generations of the IKE family are wiped out the children's grandparents had wanted to treat the family to a holiday of a lifetime and had booked the Concorde flight school teachers Klaus and Margaret Frandsen had saved for 20 years to fly on Concorde rescuers begin the gruesome task of pulling the bodies from the crash site one of the hotel workers to die is a 19-year old student Kenza Rashid she joined the staff of a hotel ASIMO only the day before the crash to earn some holiday money another victim is chambermaid Deborah knee Chun Doong Singh she dies leaving behind her two children most of the bodies are burned beyond recognition and the forensic pathologists can only identify victims by their dental records it's a harrowing time for the victims relatives like York Maya vo Yvonne one of the more difficult things it was the identification of my father and his partner one has to say nothing much remains of the passengers after an air crash funding peasanty dozen that was difficult especially Asian your will have to wait two weeks before pathologists identify the remains of his father that's how long we had to wait I'm on the force turn you can imagine that that's not exactly easy today after day the crash takes everyone by surprise Concord the queen of the skies the plane that makes supersonic travel a reality people's dreams come true had never had a fatal accident until this moment now by rewinding the events of that fateful day and by going deep into the investigation we can reveal what really happened cutting-edge computer simulation will take us when no camera can go into the heart of the disaster zone the French Bureau of air Accidents send their top investigators using their data we can now piece together the deadly chain of events to find out what really caused this terrible tragedy as the investigation begins nothing is off-limits did pilot captain Marty make a fatal error or was there a fault hidden within the perfect plane investigators make routine checks of the passenger and baggage lists immediately they find something suspicious 19 pieces of luggage that according to the loading report should not have been on the plane they don't belong to the passengers on flight AF four five nine Oh could a terrorist have smuggled a bomb onto the plane it wouldn't be the first time 270 people died in 1988 when terrorists planted a bomb in the luggage that destroyed a Pan Am 747 in the infamous lock of the incident at dawn s investigators divide the concorde crash site into a grid in order to make a meticulous search they photograph and tag everything found in each section it's a painstaking process which takes four weeks then every bit of wreckage is taken away for identification and analysis three hangers at the borscht a another Paris Airport become their final resting place this pile of debris is all the remains of the hotel such as the intensity of the crash and fire that a forty room building is reduced a little more than a pile of rubble and this is what remains of Concord one of the world's finest examples of modern engineering is now just a tangle heap of charred rubber aluminium melted plastic and fractured hydraulics the French investigators separate and identify every fragment among these burned remains lie the crucial clues to the cause of Conchords crash within hours the french bureau of air Accidents team recover the black boxes these devices are carried on all airliners to record important technical data and crucially the pilots conversation from the cockpit they analyzed the black boxes they hear no sound of an explosion it's clear to them terrorism is not to blame the investigators are forced to look for a new lead they focus on the last-minute engine repair captain Marti orders just before takeoff they know Concord returned from New York the previous day with a faulty thrust reverser on engine number two thrust reversers help to slow the planes down after they've landed investigators analyze the flight data recorder closely but find no evidence that a faulty thrust reverser could cause the accident the pressure to find an answer increases until they do the French authorities ground all Air France Concorde flights the spotlight is now on the 120 seconds from the start of Conchords final takeoff captain John Hutchinson has won hundreds of Concord takeoffs now once you've lined up on the runway the captain will then punch on the stopwatch and open the throttle fully the captain's job is to keep straight down the runway the copilot job is to the speed poles and the flight engineers sitting there and is monitoring all the instruments in particular this bank of instruments here which the engine is data from the black boxes makes it clear that everything is normal until Concord reaches 323 kilometres per hour Concorde is now only 79 seconds from disaster data recorders reveal a sudden loss of power in both engines under the left wing immediately the black box picks up the dramatic warning from the control tower f9u despite the warning pilot Kristian Marty has passed the point of no return there's not enough tarmac to stop safely he has to take off on the control column to rotate their plane up to its nose up angle of 12 point 9 degrees and here's having problems with the left-hand engines not producing the par they should have and he'll be working very hard trying to control their pain trying to get speed but of course he is being overwhelmed by the peace problems on the left hand engines the engines become the new focus of the investigation why did they lose power at such a critical time just two minutes into its journey Air France Concorde quite a are four five nine Oh crashes killing 113 people a devastating blow to the world's first supersonic airliner using advanced computer graphics based on the official report we go deep into the investigation to unravel the deadly chain of events investigators know the two left engines lose power as Concorde passes 323 kilometres per hour on the runway but why then an important new clue the French investigators find several fragments of tire on the runway one of them weighs four and a half kilograms tests quickly confirm they belong to Concord it's a significant lead why because Conchords tires inflate two extremely high pressures which make them more likely to burst than other aircraft especially during takeoff and landing pilot John Hutchinson explains and in fact when the captain pulls back to rotate it he's actually compressing the undercarriage into the runway so there's even more stress on the tires and the wheels at that particular point this additional pressure makes Conchords tires even more vulnerable now they're onto something the French accident investigators go back through the records and discover that for Concord tire blowouts are far from rare they identify over 50 cases of tire burst on takeoff and landing over 24 years one of the worst incidents involved another Air France Concorde this time at Washington's Dulles Airport in 1979 bill Lightfoot was a passenger on Concorde that day I could see a big ragged hole in the wing with like pieces of aluminum or metallic alloy and a lot of liquid pouring out of that of the hole that had been ripped in the wing the official report into this accident found that the tire bursts during taxi then the exposed metal wheel got very hot and exploded just before takeoff the plane took off but 20 minutes later returned safely to the ground the plane survived this scare but it caused a major overhaul of tire safety Concorde engineers installed sensors to detect under inflated tires modified inspection procedures for wheels before every flight and most importantly as aviation expert David Lee Ahmad explains develop stronger tires that can carry twice their normal load the requirement was the in test flight you should be able to have a complete tire blowout during the takeoff run and that you should be able to complete the take-off with no tires left and that is what the wheels and subsequently were and never again did a wheel fail that is until 18 years later in Paris when something goes very wrong despite all the safety measures one of Concorde tires explodes in fragments investigators dig deeper they re-examine all the debris found on the runway and then make the most important discovery of the investigation this 43 centimeter mystery strip of metal when you match the 43 centimeters strip of metal to the damage on Concours tire it's a perfect fit suddenly the whole inquiry now depends on the source of this metal where did it come from it takes five weeks of painstaking detective work comparing it to the thousands of parts that make up aircraft then a breakthrough they discover the metal strip comes from the engine mounting of a dc-10 the flight lock from Paris reveals a Continental Airlines dc-10 took off five minutes before Concorde they track down the plane to Houston Texas and incredibly find the engine has a missing part it's the metal strip fitted 16 days earlier during maintenance on the dc-10 when David Lamont first sees the photographs of the strip of metal he's astonished it had really rough edges and this was not just rough edges because Concorde has run over it it had been cut roughly those edges were not straight not even when it was made the other thing is that it had holes drilled in it for putting screws or rivets through and these were all over the place investigators now have a very strong theory about how the strip of metal contributed to the crash 81 seconds before the crash Concord a f45 900 is traveling at 323 kilometres per hour down the runway the tire hits the metal strip the tire explodes and a massive four and a half kilogram chunk of rubber from the tire flies at high speed up into the wing but Conchords fuel tanks are in the wings and the delta shaped wing is not designed to withstand such an impact this sort of eventuality had never been foreseen in trials it was estimated in all the trials for certificate in the aircraft in the first place that if a tire exploded the pieces of tire that would actually come away from the wheel would be about one kilogram in weight the chunk of rubber that hits Concorde swing that day weighs nearly five times as much four and a half kilograms no one had planned for that sort of impact what's more you can match the large rubber fragment at the tire with a dent on the wing but surprisingly the wing is not punctured at that point so if the heavy chunk of rubber hadn't punctured the wing what made the fuel leak out a piece of tar which actually hit the wing and did the damage was so big and so flat that although it was so heavy it didn't go through the wind at all and it caused such a shockwave to go through the fuel that it actually blew a plug of wing tank skin outwards the shop was that bad when the rubber chunk hits the wing it sets off a pressure wave which finds the weakest joint in the fuel tank the fuel bursts out of the tank 75 liters of fuel pour into the engine every second but even fuel gushing over the engine needs a spark to ignite where did the spark come from Air France Concorde af four five nine zero crashes after takeoff from Paris shall de Gaulle Airport our graphics can simulate a virtual camera on the runway to reveal the cause of the accident as the plane hurtles down the runway a rogue strip of metal bursts a tire eighty-one seconds before the crash a heavy chunk of rubber flies into the fuel tanks fuel cascades over the engines not enough on its own to cause a catastrophe it needs a spark from the cockpit voice recorder we know that the pilots have trouble with the landing gear on takeoff as Concorde struggles into the air pilot Christian Marty calls for the undercarriage to be raised but it stays locked open the only video footage ever taken of the doomed flight provides further evidence it shows the undercarriage in the down position what stopped the wheels from attracting the most likely explanation can be seen in this computer simulation shrapnel from the burst tire flies up into the landing gear Bay where it severs power cables the undercarriage is now stuck in the down position were still exposed wires are whipping around in the gale force airflow it the exposed wires make contact they'll spa as fate would have it they do that contact ignites the leaking fuel and at that moment Concorde becomes a flying bomb we can now tell you what it must have been like but captain Marty in the cockpit from the pilot's seat he can't see the planes all he knows is that Concorde is losing power in engine number two just at the moment of takeoff one second later the control tower alerts him to the fire at 14.90 you have paint behind you computer graphics show how Concorde would have looked now to make matters even worse for captain Marty the number one engine is losing power as well events are conspiring against him aviation safety expert David Lamont explains why there's a fantastic - refuel out of this quite large hole was literally drowning out that engine which gradually lost power and finally went out so the pilots were left with two engines when they're normally accustomed to having four it couldn't happen at a worse time captain Marty needs maximum power and is not enough runway left to stop he wrestles Concorde into the air cockpit voice recordings revealed that at four forty three and twenty two seconds the engine fire alarm sounds and three seconds later the captain shuts down engine number two they drill for a fire warning is that you shut the engine down and cut off the supply of fuel to it to try and then fire the fire extinguisher at engine to try and put the fire out Concord is now 53 seconds from disaster jalaja and the control tower gives what help he can to captain Marty do as you wish your priority to return to the hill but at 60 meters Concord is too low to turn around so instead captain Marty tries to fly the crippled plane to the nearest runway have la vache airforce just five kilometres ahead but there's a new problem for captain Marty the fire is now so intense that Conchords wind is melting and disintegrating the rear end of the of the wing on Concorde are the controls known as elephant's which enable the pilot to point the aircraft's nose up or down the fire was so fierce that the rear structure of the aircraft and was being virtually evaporated the pilots essential controls were being destroyed at the same time the toilet smoke alarms are heard on the voice recorders for the passengers fumes in the cabin may conditions unbearable Concorde is now 49 seconds from disaster in the cockpit Kristian Marty battles with the controls trying to gain speed and height but he's being overwhelmed by the fact that the wing and its controls are disintegrating 33 seconds the engine fire alarm sounds again and remains on for the duration of the flight captain Marty runs out of options even the runway at Liguria now only three kilometres away is out of reach with just 11 seconds left the control tie here's christian Marty's final words too late no time four seconds left the plane dips below 15 meters the final sort of act was the airplane reared up and heeled over into about a hundred and ten degrees of Bank so the airplane at that point became completely uncontrollable three seconds Concorde could no longer hang in the air it stalls and begins to roll let loose a hotel lies directly beneath the plane is about to come down just 118 seconds after Concord begins accelerating down the runway 109 people are staring death in the face two seconds later Concorde crashes into an airport hotel all 100 passengers and nine crew on board are killed as well as four people in the hotel air traffic controllers she'll La Jolla started Concorde on its fateful flight and he is a witness to those terrifying final seconds I knew that the dressing was finished I knew that there that it was the confirmation of a reality that I didn't accept in fact and because until this moment still I think I still had to believe that it was not true that it was not the reality so he gave me the point I think he gives me the the reality that it was over that this that's what could not happen as a pond that it was a real crash Concorde the world's only successful supersonic airliner has its perfect 25 year safety record destroyed in just 120 seconds it's a crash of unimaginable horror the messages had only a few seconds to prepare the death two days later relatives are allowed to lay flowers at the crash site even today they feel a deep sense of loss you're Maya's father died in the crash I certainly miss him he leaves a gap for me that cannot be filled no what makes it more terrible to him that he's the fact that he didn't die from a natural illness but in a horrific accident and he was plucked out of life it is a crime wasn't it the disaster was also traumatic for those who survived from the town of gun s businessman Patrick Tess had a miraculous escape he works directly next door to the hotel destroyed by conflict to this day he's haunted by the events you well of course the crash had an effect on me at all you can't remain that affected by it to see what I saw the body is through the fire the injuries is all the world man of burning flesh is just terrible of a ship the years this is opinion for Concord the Parrish disaster is the beginning of the end three weeks after the crash all Concord flights are grounded Air France and British Airways the two airlines that fly Concord have to make major safety modifications tires are strengthened so that they remain functional even when punctured by a 30 centimeter blade engineers in case the fuel tanks with bulletproof Kevlar liners to resist puncture and electrical harnesses in the main landing gear bays are reinforced but Concorde was never to regain her former glory fourteen months after the crash Concord passenger flights resumed but the cost of maintaining and upgrading the aging fleet is too great passenger numbers declined sharply on the 24th of October 2003 Concord carries passengers for the last time the first era of supersonic passenger travel is at an end Concord is now just a museum relic

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Channel: Mega Disasters

Views: 833,531

Rating: 4.5061617 out of 5

Keywords: Mega, Disasters, Crash, Concorde

Id: fwjg1F_zdCk

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 44min 59sec (2699 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2016

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