The Air France Concorde Flight Crash

This online engineering PDH interactive presentation provides a brief outline on the Air France Concorde flight and its ultimate crash.
 

On July 25, 2000, Air France Flight 4590 was a charter flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. With 100 passengers and nine crewmembers on board, the fully loaded Concorde began taxing towards runway 26 at approximately 1434 local time and took off. At that point, one of the tires on the left main landing gear (tire no.2) struck a small piece of sheet metal that had fallen from the no. 3 engine of a DC-10 that had taken off five minutes earlier. The no. 2 tire immediately failed, sending debris into the underside of the airplane and left wheel well. It was determined that the largest tire debris did not penetrate the wing surface but generated a high-pressure surge within the no. 5 fuel tank, resulting in at least three areas of tank surfaces failing outward, and generating a massive fuel leak.
 

The plane climbed to an altitude of approximately 200 feet, and airspeed of approximately 200 kts, but was unable to accelerate or climb. After about 60 seconds, no 1 engine began to fail, followed by decay in airspeed and the inability to maintain level flight. The Concorde’s stall and crash into a hotel approximately 90 seconds from the beginning of the takeoff roll, killing all 109 passengers and crew on board, and four persons on the ground, makes it one of the deadliest aircraft crashes in history.
 

This presentation introduces the Air France flight crash on July 25, 2000 and describes the main factors that led to its crash.  It further discusses other factors that catered for the fatal effects of the Concorde’s crash, and the board findings resulting in safety initiatives to take effect. Finally, this presentation describes the lessons learnt following the crash and its impact on the ongoing legacy.
 

This 2 PDH online interactive presentation is applicable to aircraft engineers, safety directors, and builders who are interested in gaining a better understanding of the basics of aircraft systems.