Concorde crew had no choice but to take off -- Experts

Concorde crew had no choice but to take off -- Experts
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

PARIS, JULY 30: The crew of the ill-fated Concorde had no choice but to go through with the take-off, having passed the point of no return, experts said Sunday, citing data from France's Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA).

The Air France Concorde crashed Tuesday shortly after take-off from Paris' Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all 109 people on board, as well as five people on the ground. The BEA said Sunday the Concorde's pilots had given the V1 signal - the point at which a plane cannot abort its take off - 32 seconds after it began rolling down the runway.

At this point, the jet had travelled 1,200 meters (4,000 feet) down the runway. The debris recovered by investigators was found after that point on the runway. "Everything happened after the point of no return, which means the Pilot had no leeway, he had to continue with the take-off," said airline Pilot and Air accident investigation expert Francois Grangier.

"The fact that the debris was found after the V1 point is extremely important," said another aeronautics expert. "This shows that the breakdown happened after V1, at which point the plane cannot stop. It must take off, and if something goes wrong, it must turn around and go back to land."

Grangier said the only thing that could have kept the Pilot from leaving the runway was "a clear assurance that the plane could not for any reason leave the ground, which, however, he did not have at that stage. "Maybe he had a problem with the second engine, but in the case of an engine failure, take-off continues after the (V1) point of no return.

"The only reason to stop would be a major structural problem - a problem with flight controls or at least two engine failures if not three - in short, very serious damage that would have led the Pilot to sacrifice the plane in any event," Grangier said.

The pilot/expert said that to abort the take-off at that speed would have caused the plane to crash anyway. "Hindsight shows that the passengers would maybe have had a greater chance of survival (if the airplane had not taken off), but nothing, absolutely nothing would have led the crew to inter.