What was the cause of the Paris accident in July 2000?
The investigation concluded that what happened is that during its take-off run Concorde ran over a strip of titanium that had dropped off the engine of a Continental Airlines’ DC10. This caused a tyre to burst which threw up debris that hit the underside of the wing, causing a shockwave in the fuel present in the loaded tank. This in turn caused the tank to fail from the inside out. The leaking fuel was ignited, possibly from the 115 Volt systems for the carbon brake cooling fans. Due to a lack of fuel and ingestion of debris, power was lost on engine no.2. With severe air flow distortion from the fire, the no.1 engine also lost thrust and the aircraft fell out of the sky as not enough power was available to keep it flying. A full detailed description of the cause of the accident is available in the accident section.
