US airline chief quizzed over Concorde crash
A Continental Airlines executive went before an investigating judge near Paris today for questioning in the probe of the July 2000 crash of the Concorde supersonic jetliner .
Ken Burt, a Continental vice president, refused any comment before entering the prosecutor’s office in Pontoise – the region covering Gonesse, north of Paris, where the accident occurred.
The prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for manslaughter after the crash and has centred its probe on Continental. The company could be placed under investigation – a step short of being charged – as early as Thursday, judicial officials said.
The airline has said it does not believe it had responsibility in causing the crash.
Experts concluded that a titanium “wear strip” that fell from a Continental DC-10 ahead of the crash had a direct role in the accident that killed all 109 people on board the Concorde and four on the ground.
The Concorde exploded in flames two minutes after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport on July 25, 2000, and slammed into a hotel. The accident spelled an end to the career of the sleek but costly airliner.
The judicial report came to the same conclusions as accident investigators - that the metal strip caused a Concorde tyre to burst, propelling rubber debris that perforated the supersonic plane’s fuel tanks.
The prosecutor’s office contends that Continental violated US Federal Aviation Administration rules by using titanium in a part of the plane that normally called for use of aluminium. Titanium, which is far harder than aluminium, made the accident more likely, they said.
However, the judicial report also cited weaknesses in ”the training and preparation of the Concorde teams,” and insufficient protection of the supersonic jet’s fuel tanks.
Experts pointed to 67 cases of tyre or wheel ruptures which in 24 cases “provoked one or more impacts on the structure,” the report said. It added that in seven of the incidents “the fuel tanks were pierced with one or more holes".
“According to the experts, the number and seriousness of damages caused by bursting tyres of the Concorde’s main landing gear to the engines as well as the structure are beyond the norm in the 24 years of the aircraft’s use,” a statement by the prosecutor’s office said in December.
Investigating Judge Christophe Regnard is to meet on Thursday with a legal representative of the Continental Airlines, said French judicial officials.
