Air France 4590 O Culpado ERRADO E a Falha Que Matou 113

Video from the channel TIAGO RARO about Concorde, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 17:13. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Documentary.

Documentary about the accident of Air France flight 4590 on 25 July 2000 and the subsequent judicial process. It argues that the weakness of tires and fuel tanks had been known since 1979 and that the real responsibility lay in a structural flaw tolerated for two decades.

It reviews earlier tire bursts: two at Washington Dulles in 1979, the second on 21 July, which led US authorities to issue an airworthiness directive; New York in 1981, London in 1985, and Heathrow in 1988 and 1993. According to the video, the investigation counted 67 tire or wheel failures, 24 with impacts on the structure and seven with the tank punctured. In November 1981 the NTSB described these incidents as potentially catastrophic.

A Continental Airlines DC-10 lost a titanium strip on the Charles de Gaulle runway. The Concorde ran over it at nearly 300 km/h and a roughly 4.5 kg tire fragment struck the left wing; the hydrodynamic shock wave ruptured tank number 5 and the fuel caught fire. Engines 1 and 2 lost power, the landing gear did not retract, and the aircraft crashed onto a hotel in Gonesse: 113 people died, 109 on board and 4 on the ground. In 2008 six people or entities were charged. In December 2010 Continental and mechanic John Taylor were convicted, with a 15-month suspended sentence, while Henri Perrier, Jacques Hérubel and Claude Frantzen were acquitted. In November 2012 the Versailles court of appeal overturned the criminal convictions and left Continental liable for 70% of the damages. With Kevlar-lined tanks and Michelin tires, the aircraft flew again in November 2001, until its retirement in 2003.