# One of the Concordes crashed **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2000, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779 "2000-07-25T15:42:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mullinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@Mullinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mullinator)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/1 "2000-07-25T15:42:44Z")
[Read about it here](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000725/aponline113116_000.htm) Nothing particularly significant, but it could become an interesting story since a hotel was involved and this is the type of plane that caters to the well-to-do. Looks like those hairline cracks found in the British version may get a bit more attention. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/2 "2000-07-25T15:57:55Z")
That’s a shocker. There has not been so much as an incident incolving a Concorde until now. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/3 "2000-07-25T16:02:22Z")
Ouch. These planes are supposedly real safe. Wonder what happened? ---
**Author:** ![Nen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Nen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nen)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/4 "2000-07-25T16:04:09Z")
It was that funky looking nose-cone. I just knew something would go wrong with a nose-cone like that. Now I get to give ‘em the ol’ “I told you so!” No, I can’t, I forgot to tell 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/5 "2000-07-25T16:04:27Z")
Holy shit… sounds very serious. I’ll try to find some news links. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/6 "2000-07-25T16:06:00Z")
109 dead on the plane, crew included. They fear for an equal amount of dead in the hotel. Dutch news source, so a link is futile. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/7 "2000-07-25T16:11:37Z")
[CNN.com](http://CNN.com) reported that witnesses said the plane was on fire before the crash and that the nose kept rising, stalling the it. Oddly, I had just read an article about feasabilty of supersonic business jets for the ultra big shots of the world. Logical or not this crash will probably be the last nail in the coffin of SST. As morbid as the suggetion is I bet no one picked a Concorde crash in the celebrety death pool threads. ---
**Author:** ![jesuslynch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e99b99/32.png) [@jesuslynch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jesuslynch)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/8 "2000-07-25T16:12:30Z")
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000725/aponline114104\_000.htm](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000725/aponline114104_000.htm) ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/9 "2000-07-25T16:23:10Z")
Any dopers due to come back from a vacation in France right about now, I hope not? ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/10 "2000-07-25T16:31:59Z")
To hear of this, as in any air crash, is tragic but for Britons and French more so. To you it is a Concorde, one aircraft of several - to us it is \*\*The Concorde{/b]. Others drop out of the sky periodically but Concordes safety record was pristine, how could it happen to such a work of art. It has a charisma no other civil airliner comes close to . I used to see them from time to time going overhead and the distinctive shape always gave a sense of pride. It was a step the rest of the world never took (TU122 excepted - that was a failure) and it gave us a sense of achievement. It looks like any replacement is years away if at all, it’s like watching a beautiful dream die. ---
**Author:** ![Gazoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ce73a5/32.png) [@Gazoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazoo)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/11 "2000-07-25T16:35:50Z")
Per the AP wire, all of the passengers were German. Part of a tour group headed to NY. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/12 "2000-07-25T16:37:40Z")
Pilots have a habit of guessing what happened after a crash. We’ll have to wait for the official word (which could take months to come out), but here’s my guess: The article said that there was smoke trailing from one of the engines. A witness, a FedEx pilot, said he saw flames. Could’ve been a catastophic compressor failure. A turbine blade can cause a lot of damage if it gets thrown (as in the DC-10 crash in Souix Falls (?) several years ago). So you have a heavy aircraft at low speed and low altitude that suddenly loses at least one engine. The pilot tries to keep it in the air, but stalls it; or he doesn’t stall but he didn’t have the power to climb high enough to avoid the obstacle. As for other incidents, I quote the article: > [@](#): > > Its only major scare came in 1979, when a bad landing blew out a plane’s tires. The incident led to a design modification. > > On Jan. 30 of this year, a Concorde aircraft made an emergency landing at London’s Heathrow Airport – the second such landing within a 24-hour period by one of the supersonic jets. A cockpit alarm had sounded, warning of a fire in the rear cargo hold, but engineers found no problem. > > The previous day, one of four engines had shut down on a Concorde as it approached Heathrow. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/13 "2000-07-25T16:42:45Z")
Cabbage reported in another thread it was a charter group of German tourists. Casdave, I agree with you that logically it’s no different than any other airplane crash but it’s potentially the end of an era. The safety record was pristine but you have to admit the population sample is extremely small. ---
**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/14 "2000-07-25T16:55:24Z")
Yeah, apparently it was a German tour group headed to New York, where they were going to depart on a cruise ship. I’ve been watching the crash scene on CNN, and it looks horrible. The reported casualties so far are 109 on the plane, 4 on the ground. The initial report was that it crashed into a hotel, that seems unclear to me right now. The crash site is **right** next to a hotel (it looks like within 20 or 30 yards), and there could have been an annex to that hotel where the airplane crashed, it’s impossible to tell from the scenes. This sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/15 "2000-07-25T17:20:28Z")
This is absolutely horrible. I feel really sick now. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/16 "2000-07-25T17:40:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by casdave \* > \*\* > …a step the rest of the world never took (TU122 excepted - that was a failure)… \*\* Tu-144. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/17 "2000-07-25T17:47:45Z")
A US SST was tried but Boeing realized it wouldn’t be possible to operate without govt’ subsidy as the competitors had. Boeing’s was designed with swing wings which would have been an advantage until they realized the could have the weight of the swing wing mechanism _or_ passengers but not both. ---
**Author:** ![Hamadryad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6de8d8/32.png) [@Hamadryad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamadryad)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/18 "2000-07-25T17:53:20Z")
“There was no immediate word on the cause of the crash, the first involving the mythical supersonic Anglo-French aircraft.” Just as a side note…if it’s mythical, how are they getting any of the wreckage? (quoted from an AP story) ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/19 "2000-07-25T17:58:32Z")
The head of Air France has said that he believes the cause to be an engine failure unrelated to the structural problems discovered on a British Airways Concorde earlier. (full story [here](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_851000/851209.stm) from the BBC) I thought that Concorde would be withdrawn from service after the cracks were found in the British one, I have to admit. The aircraft are something like 30 years old, and given the extreme stresses they face (what was that fact about them expanding in size at supersonic speeds?) and the presumed lack of profit in operating them, I thought that was it. My heart goes out to the friends and relatives of those killed. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2000, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779/20 "2000-07-25T18:08:23Z")
Concords were just in the news, maybe yesterday, about cracks being found in the wings. However, it would seem that this accident is unrelated to that issue. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-concordes-crashed/26779.md?page=2)