What Actually Happened to the Concorde 

Eli and Mike hit it out of the park. We just hired another animator who worked on the Dark Knight movie, so prepare for even more crazy animations.

@@friendify thanks

I would like to be a part of no return, 500 comments in the future

yes

👏👏👏

KEKLEO

Repent to Jesus Christ “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” ‭‭Galatians‬ ‭2:20‬ ‭NIV‬‬ K

​@@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist3Amen!

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the problem solving is what made me want to get into the engineering field, and he portrays that well here

The journey, not the destination.

it's what makes the Mayday/Air Crash Investigation tv series so great

I remember reading the full report and being astounded by the professionalism of the crew to the last moment tying to save the plane.

Seems there may be more to it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fqOcYhzWUZY.html

Totally agree that figuring this out is insane. Reminds me of fire investigations, the places literally burn down but investigators are somehow able to pin point exactly how fires started and progressed over time. With plane crashes the thing you are investigating is literally in a million smoldering pieces so figuring out anything is amazing.

@@Michaelonyoutub it's one of the main reasons that documentation is so crucial for investigations like this. Many catastrophy investigations are solved long after the fact, by careful examination of all the gathered information. From instrument readings, to the exact location of different parts of the plane/bridge/dam/train/etc. To extensive analysis of materials and service records. I took an elective course about this on my masters degree at a whim, and I think I use knowledge from it as much as from all the other courses, despite it being completely unrelated to my field of work (computer security).

With enough data, you can predict the future.

It seems magical because the investigators are geniuses.

Repent to Jesus Christ “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” ‭‭Galatians‬ ‭2:20‬ NIV

Because airlines are a business for moving passengers. Not making nice toys. And despite all its technological Wonder, it was not a financial success. Nor have regulations changed to make supersonic travel viable.

Not the Concorde's fault? I think an airplane that kills itself when it pops a tire only has itself to blame.

The 20th century had a widespread optimism about the future that has gone very much out of style at the moment... it's hard to think inventively about the future when you're overwhelmed with worry that it will be terrible

That isn't how airplane safety works, unless the plane is deliberately sabotaged it is always the company's fault. 1. they could have anticipated the incompressible fuel and built in some margin for empty space 2. Failing that they could have used the kevlar wrap in the first place. 3. They could have designed tires less likely to shred and impact the fuel tanks. If you tell your passengers "it's not my fault" every time you crash, they'll just switch to flying with airlines that say "we know what went wrong and are taking steps to make sure this can never happen again" As far as passengers are concerned the number of excusable fatal accidents is Zero. Depressed pilots have even deliberately flown into a mountain and the company apologized for not adequately psychologically screening their pilots.

It's a pity that this post about the Concorde crash (along with most others) didn't include the information that the French government and Air France managed to largely surpress about the accident. The aircraft was already in some difficulty even before it hit the metal strip left on the runway, with bad decisions made by the flight crew (before and after takeoff) and poor maintenance by Air France.... John Hutchinson (one of BA's most experienced Concorde pilots) did an excellent piece about it.

This also happened. This is what caused the immediate failure of engine# 2. Engine #1 failed due to smoke inhalation from the burning fuel causing it to be oxygen starved.

@@PerfidiousLeaf Engine 2 did not fail due to damage. Because of the fuel leak both engine 1 and 2 surged before cutting off. Engine 1 recovered but engine 2 was then completely shutdown to try and prevent potential damage due to a fire warning. Engine 1 never actually failed completely. But it could not recover as the fuel leak was greater than what could be supplied to engine 1.

Also what's fascinates me is the price of human lives. You only need to 1 million fine for killing 100+ people because of cheap and poor repair. It's like buying "slaves" in the past, cheap as dirt. Shows how powerful and untouchable companies and corporations today...

@@kurtjustiniani1354 look at Boeing and the two 737 max crashes

@@GuinessOriginalThe tenerife disaster? Yea.. that was fucking ridiculous

that's how accidents always happen. All humans that are related to an incident are supposed to work with a fail safe. If whichever of them doesn't put the extra effort to ensure there's a fail safe, then it's still fine. But under stress, each tries to cut some corners and often each relies on the others for fail safes, until one to many fail safes fail. If the designer of the plane would have designed the plane with one more fail safe (kevlar belly, better tyres, etc.), none of it would have happened, despite everything else. if the AF engineers would have put that space bar, none of it would have happened, despite everything else. If the Captain would not have started the takeoff, due to structural weight limits, none of it ... If the guy who refueled would have balanced the tanks, none of it ... If the Continental plane would have done proper maintainance, ... If the Airport would have taken the time to inspect the runway after each take off, .... If the Architect of the Concorde project would have had less hubris and more reasoning, they would have built a project that was economically viable, so that there wouldn't be a stress on the company, so that nobody feels like they have to skip any fail safe procedure. And so on. But many of them failed and that's the only way accidents happen. There's never a single reason.

@@nydydn and in this case... there's more than that. This wasn't the first time a blown tire burst a fuel tank. The guys doing the previous investigation were... quick to sign off on it being safe enough. "sure we had to cancel multiple flights because of blown tires rupturing fuel tanks... but it's not like anyone'll get killed by it." Until it did. This is one thing Concorde hadn't, IMO, been fully honest about because their reputation and finances were on the line. I would not have considered the aircraft airworthy. Ruptured fuel tanks are not "normal". You can't just say "oh it's not gonna burst into flames" and call it good. Obviously in this case it did in fact burst into flames. Realistically having to cancel flights due to the plane becoming un-airworthy during an attempted take off is something I'd personally consider a huge problem... even if all it does is inconvenience passengers. It's not something you should just handwave. But they did. Sure.. Continental happened to be the spark that lit the fire... but the fire only lead to an explosion due to a design defect.

@@marhawkman303 the DC-10 had also had fuel ruptures on takeoff that lead to fires. It would be aggressively corrected in modern designs, but to say it would never happen for other aircraft is just false - it was within expectations at the time. It also needs to be pointed out that there were already preventative measures against this on most concordes; the area around the engines had been strengthened and made resilient against impacts, fuel tanks already had liners, this *particular* airframe just happened to be one that AF had cheaped out on. The concorde as a design was safe and for BA the most profitable aircraft of all time, even with them having paid for all design upgrades to keep them safe and up to standard.

@@iskierka8399 "within expectations"? for a commercial jet to go down in flames during take off? one thing you left out: how long did it take for the DC10 issue to get fixed?

@@marhawkman303 To set on fire, yes, to go down is the part that was unusual. It also took months for the DC10 issue to even have a hearing on the issue, and was not grounded for that delay - on the other hand, Concorde's issue was *already* fixed years prior, the kevlar lining and protected landing gear were already available and fitted to all British Airways Concordes, this one particular Air France Concorde had been cheaped out on and that is the reason it was *able* to suffer this failure at all.

> *This is by no means a criticism, rather supportive feedback. Typically in Aviation, Runway designations are said as "Runway Two-Six-Right" rather than "Runway Twenty-Six-R".* That's one thing that the Mayday/Air Disasters TV series always did that REALLY pisses me the hell off.

It’s actually “One-Six-Right” any aviation nerd should get that reference

so this is actually a criticism? I think realengineering is mature enough to appericiate it. But it sad that this needs to be said:

@@TheReaper569 I mean I can forgive pronouncing an airport name in a different country wrong. I’m sure I’ve butchered some English names a few times. It hurts to hear but I can get over it. The runway number should have been caught tho.

Yes I can confirm that he pronounced Dulles incorrectly. After all, it is my profile picture.

As far as I can tell, the USS Gerald R. Ford was accepted in 2017 from the contractor and is still not passing minimum requirements for deployment. The fact of that and that there are 3 others currently being built worries me. On the other hand, I too would love a video on the challenges facing the Ford from design to acceptance to certification for deployment. It would be great to get some clarity on what actually happened as opposed to scuttlebutt. (like for instance that the EM catapult would EMP the whole carrier, which seems to have no basis in reality)

id love to see a real engineering on carriers too, but until then not what you think has one which goes into this topic

@@thezouave7636 ,she's coming along just fine. www.dvidshub.net/unit/CVN78

Not What You Think has done lots of videos regarding your topic. Though not too much detail into the engineering aspects, he does talk about the different kinds of systems used across multiple generations of carriers

@@nicholaslau3194 yeah I've watched those. I just wanted a lot more detail about it

theres something so funny about the idea of a burning plane succesfully out speeding its own fire

Do you know if the Flight Engineer shutting an engine down in event of fire is standard procedure at AF? It seems unimaginable that the FE would have that authority. Normally, only the Captain can make that decision.

@@fazole It's actually shocking that the flight engineer shut the engine down without authority. Especially since it was a fuel tank fire and not engine. There was an analysis by John Huthchison on You Tube which went into all this detail.

@@fazole It is forbidden to shut down a Concorde engine, even if it’s on fire, under 1,000 ft. by the operating manuals. The FE did it at far less altitude than that, about 200 ft., and didn’t tell the pilots that he did it.

Thank you now I don’t have to waste 16 minutes of my life listening to this

I don't think a good suspension system would allow that. But yeah, what happened was pretty much unpredictable. No one's fault in my opinion.

How would that happen except perhaps in an extremely heavy landing? I can't imagine that a small metallic strip would bend the whole undercarriage upwards, especially during a take-off run!

​@@Nilguiri when you have a heavy plane charging at a small metal strip on the ground at 100 knots, it has quite a large amount of force, but yea I don't think the suspension system wouldn't prevent that.

Generally speaking, the idea I was expressing was purely based on unaccounted for failure of said suspension upon the release of the air pressure of the tire. Basically structural failure followed by some downward movement causing some of the sub components of that suspension to be pushed upward into....whatever was above it, perhaps a fuel line/tank. Obviously it wasn't something I have any background information on or experience in. I'm just a stupid electrician lol I may or may not have experience in some wiring in an older aircraft or two but....not if anyone is asking...because if they are, I don't and I was kidding.

This is not what happened, the tire exploded from over pressure when it run over the metal strip, and the rubber (a large enough chunk of it) itself flown upwards and hit the underside of the tank. and that piece caused the pressure wave to move in the tank (inside the fuel) and when it hit the tank side on the wrong part, it blow out. it was not a slight movement in the landing gear, but a literal explosion with insane force. Still, it was somewhat known to happen and there was even some talk before to switch either stronger tire or make it, that the explosion would go sideways, instead of vertically, avoiding the plane.

And in this plane on the adjacent taxiway, il I remember well, there was Jacques Chirac, the President... Well, this video is centered on engineering... ^^

I have no idea what a bogey is but why wouldn't they have aborted the takeoff if they had an issue like that?

@@bobbygetsbanned6049 The bogey connects the wheels to the vertical strut. Once you get to "V1" you don't have sufficient space to stop anymore - you have to liftoff. If you look at the photo at 1:08, the burn/soot line is peeling off the left of the runway.

@@RangieNZ Yes but a missing bearing should be pulling them to the left the entire takeoff, before V1.

@@bobbygetsbanned6049 Perhaps, but the pilots would correct as soon as they noticed.

Transfering forces throughout a structure will still subject materials to mechanical forces that will determine if the local material exceeds tensile, yield, or fracture thresholds.

You wouldn't believe how much he left out...

I heard a story that the captain had way too much fuel pumped into the tank at the very rear of the plane....

You are doing a smart thing! Are you familiar with the AOPA Air Safety Institute and Blancolirio channel? Both great resources!

the documents are probably available if you are really interested

you really got it man

None of theses things had any relevant role in the accident.

The story as told by John Hutchinson ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fqOcYhzWUZY.html

@@redwithblackstripes Very few accidents have a single factor. On a normal day, that tyre failure may well have been a survivable event. There were a lot of aggravating factors here. Being overweight did not have "no role" in the accident. It hinders the aircraft's ability to fly. It was beyond its maximum _structural_ weight, let alone maximum takeoff weight. A tailwind takeoff increases the ground speed required to get airborne. That adds to the problem. The centre of gravity was off, which made it harder to control. Critically, the wing fuel tanks were overfilled. They _were not meant_ to be filled to the brim, precisely so that fuel _does_ have somewhere to go instead of rupturing the fuel tank. The captain ignored safety protocols, because they did not want to leave any passengers or bags behind, and filled the tanks to the brim so that the overweight aircraft would make it without a fuel stop. If the fuel tanks were not overfilled, they would have been a lot less likely to rupture.

@@BlazeFirereign There is nothing wrong with "overfilling" the main wing tanks, this procedure was done in accordance with Concorde's Ops manual. The main engine wing tanks (1-4) were positioned in equal moment around the C of G so the extra weight of additional fuel would have negligible effect on C of G. Secondly, Tank 5 was not "filled to the brim", it was correctly filled to 94% which was normal for any long distance Concorde flight. Also Concorde, like most vehicles with fuel tanks, had a tank breathing system which in Concorde's case designed to also compensate for fuel surge and tank pressurisation. During the investigation this was found to be functional on Tank 5, it couldn't physically be "fill to the brim" as any excess fuel would be vented out. The rupture was cause as the fuel was forced back by the acceleration of the take-off, hitting against the rear tank bulkhead leaving a small area in the upper front of the tank with air and by misfortune the tyre debris hit close to a seam at the rear bottom of the tank. The CFD fluid mechanics of such action were not around in the late 60s or early 70s so were not factored in Concorde's design.

If nothing else, the 2008 recession and the pandemic would have ended its career.

The first test flight carrying passengers (BA staff) near the return-to-flight date was actually on September 11 2001. Not great timing.

The Leeds airport would have presumably been Leeds Bradford Airport, (also known as Yeadon). The runway was extended in the early 80s so Concorde and 747s could operate there. I never got to see Concorde fly as I'm too young but she was an amazing aircraft. My dad once told me about the few times Concorde flew over my childhood house as it was in the flightpath for Yeadon.

​@@stevenhickenjr Ah, Leeds Bradford rings a bell, yes. I think we took a bus from the airport to visit York for the day. Seeing the Concordes fly was a spectacle. I worked for BA (I got cheap and free flights! hence my 2 trips on Concordes) at Heathrow right next to the threshold of 27L and every day a few of us aircraft enthusiasts would go out into the car park to watch them take off. It would set off all of the car alarms in the car park! And you could feel the rumble in your chest. At dusk especially, you could see beautiful pink-purple flames from the afterburners shooting out the back of the engines as it raced down the runway and slowly climbed away. It's a shame you never got to see it. It was beautiful!

the point le the video is that the reservoir was not «cut with a knife » but sheared by compression wave forces. they are not saying exactly like this, but the reservoir exploded under compression waves. the petrol brought natural compression to all parts, and the hook added the little something that was just enough to create the critical front wave to shear the foil. this reminds me one falcon 9 explosion, where the root issue was a hydrogen tank inside oxygen tank that ruptured, bringing oxygen tank to higher pression than designed ... that happened on ground during filling about 20mn before planning lift off. the dumping mass ( a few tons, a raw steel roll ) was seen to fly a few hundred meters away. you need to understand how waves hugely increase forces ... see how glass can break with sound. there are videos made by slow mo guys. also check prince Rupert drops (smarter very day, and other )

@@benoit-pierredemaine3824 no. Me thinks thow doest protest to much. Someone was onboard that needed to be Epstein'ed. Nice try.

Eh, at high pressures, metal behaves similar to a plastic balloon. You can pressurize an aluminum can with a bike pump (or dry ice) and get the same effect, though you’d better have something to hide behind.

@@ZeteticPhilosopher yes, but the destruction would not leave behind a perfectly flat piece of metal with an outline like that. Seems silly.

@@ivegotheart what do you know ?

Hypersonic is where it's at, the Lapcat A2 could take you from New York City to Melbourne in five hours if Reaction Engines would only hurry up and finish building the prototype.

@SamuelWright520 Possibly. Foreign Object Damage is the acronym I was told but it could be Foreign Objects & Debris or something in other contexts

Commercial airports do FOD cleanup, too. This was just unfortunately between them.

Several parts of your statement are completely incorrect. Do yourself a favour and read the accident report. Engine 2 was at idle when the fire alarm went off. The last part of your comment in particular, is flat out wrong according to the CVR. From BEA report P 133: "Engine fire alarm actuation and the very low values on the parameters led the crew to shut down the engine after the Captain called for the engine fire procedure. In fact, the movement of the throttle control lever to its idle stop is heard and, a short time later, pulling of the fire handle. In addition, the deceleration of the engine, established from the recorded parameters, is consistent with a commanded engine shut down." It is important to note that the AF Concorde Flight Manual requires an immediate reaction by the crew in case of a 'red alarm'. See the following timeline from the CVR and Concorde Flight manual. o 14 h 43 min 13.4 s, message from the controller indicating flames at the rear and read back by the FO. o 14 h 43 min 16.4 s, FE “(stop) “. o 14 h 43 min 20.4 s, FE “Failure eng… failure engine two”. o 14 h 43 min 22.8 s, fire alarm. o 14 h 43 min 24.8 s, FE “shut down engine two”. o 14 h 43 min 25.8 s, Captain “engine fire procedure” and in the following second the noise of a selector and fire alarm stops. As the CVR shows, the FE correctly called out the engine failure and then announced the required procedure as "shut down engine two" (I was trained as a Flight Engineer and I would have done the same) and the Captain immediately commanded the engine fire procedure to be carried out. i.e engine shut down, Fire Extinguisher discharged. Also by Saying "Stop'" at 14:43 16.4, the FE may have been the only person who correctly called for an abort to the takeoff.

@@Completeaerogeek Sorry but that's not correct in case of the concorde. If you have a engine fire on takeoff, you shut off the fire warning and continue until you reached a safe speed and altitude before you shut of the engine.

@@Completeaerogeek You should watch "John Hutchinson on Air France Flight 4590"

You are wrong again. See my further reply from the accident report..

@@x-planeliveriesandstuffsho1074 I have the accident report and have just watched JH video again. He makes several mistakes and unfortunate accusations one of which is in saying that the FE shut the engine down without consulting the Captain. The CVR shows this is not so. He is also in error in that the Air France flight manual demands a response action to a 'Red Alarm' i.e. carry out the fire drill and shut the engine down. The Captain commanded this a second or so after the FE announced the engine failure on #2. From BEA report P 133: "Engine fire alarm actuation and the very low values on the parameters led the crew to shut down the engine after the Captain called for the engine fire procedure." "The movement of the throttle control lever to its idle stop is heard and, a short time later, pulling of the fire handle. In addition, the deceleration of the engine, established from the recorded parameters, is consistent with a commanded engine shut down." See the following timeline from the CVR and d Concorde Flight manual. o 14 h 43 min 13.4 s, message from the controller indicating flames at the rear and read back by the FO. o 14 h 43 min 16.4 s, FE “(stop) “. o 14 h 43 min 20.4 s, FE “Failure eng… failure engine two”. o 14 h 43 min 22.8 s, fire alarm. o 14 h 43 min 24.8 s, FE “shut down engine two”. o 14 h 43 min 25.8 s, Captain “engine fire procedure” and in the following second the noise of a selector and fire alarm stops. The BEA report addresses the spacer in detail and says it had minimal/no effect on the accident. The drift to the left was almost certainly caused by the asymmetric thrust which would have had a far greater effect that scrubbing tyres. Certainly the max fuel issue did contribute . Without it, the tyre would have blown but the accident most likely wouldn't have happened.

near the end of its run, the flights with the Concorde were cheaper

@@ristekostadinov2820 “cheaper” doesn’t always mean affordable. It just means less expensive. Considering OP was disappointed they couldn’t fly on it, it probably wasn’t cheap enough.

Find a friend that is an airforce fast jet pilot and ask him to take you for a ride in a trainer over Nevada or maybe Northern Canada. He'll take to to Mach 2. 😎😉😉😉

@@huwzebediahthomas9193 if it was still in service then become a pilot of the x 15 and you can go tho mach 6

@@heidirabenau511 You'd be in your 90s no! 😁😁😁👍

I just watched the video. How is it possible for such an experienced crew to have made such bad decisions?

@@f-s-r well, the aircraft accident with the higest death count till now, Tenerife airport disaster KLM Flight 4805 · Pan Am Flight 1736, was caused by the most experienced captain of klm Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten

If you want a real version of the events, may I suggest you read the full BEA report. Retired pilots do not make good crash investigators, nor so one that happened to spend some of his career flying for Air France's only Concorde commercial competitor. Mr Hutchinson's opinion is not based on facts, merely disinformation cleverly orated to appeal to his target demographic, sell some books & top up his retirement fund on the ex-Concorde pilot lecture circuit.

and thank you for watching it

Yes, ultra excellent. As an aircraft engineer that had to explain equipment to laypeople, perfectly displayed and explained. But where actually on the McD-D did that wear strip come from?

@@huwzebediahthomas9193 From the engine, i think?

Your second line contradicts the first...

To be fair, speeds continue to increase at takeoff. If no action was made at V1, any decision would be too late.

@@krashd how does it do that?

@@dbclass4075 exactly, V1 is the point where you can stop the aircraft on the runway safely. Beyond V1 you are pretty much committed to flight.

@@Slarti Minor detail: V1 is the *maximum* speed an aircraft can stop safely.

The B52 has issue , got a video or article ?

@@elvisgyaase6170 funny thing I watched one yesterday it was a nightmare, it was obsolete so many times but they kept rebuilding redesigning and upgrading, so many crashed had engine issues, structural issues 2 of them lost the entire rudder and not just the control surface the entire structure, they kept loosing nukes because of it it was declassified recently that 1 nuke nearly went off because 3 out of 4 of the safety triggers went off. One got dropped on Spain and they conventional warhead went off and scattered radioactive debris all over america had to do a massive cleanup and stop flying them over Spain I'll find the video. Edit : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q6rnzOGhj-8.html

Alright I’ll give myself a raise, thanks

@@RealEngineering A raise yes, but not too much, it could set off inflationary pressures in the voice-over "Concorde flight engineering factors that contribute to loss of controlled flight" production field appearing on RU-vid. And I could see that you wouldn't want to do that. Have you considered doing any voice-over work on videos that specialize on the difficulties of maintaining long term sexual relationships in Tardigrades when one member of a mating pair might be frozen for months or years at a time, while the other is not, and it has made a choice to reproduce asexually instead of waiting around. Truly problematical when personal gender function and identity is experienced as: Him, or Her, or Whatever. Yes, a voice-over on that topic would be both topical, and exciting. Consider it, and thank you for viewing a short moment of, "I can't believe I read the whole thing." A wholly owned subsidiary of, "I can't believe I watched the whole thing,"LLC, itself an off-shoot of ButterEmails inspired by a margarine advertisement on TV and the time I spent watching HRC being questioned for eleven hours by Congressional Committees on Benghazi. Yes, I did respect the YT video on the tragedy of the Concorde crash and will be mindful in explaining the need to do system analysis in a detailed, and thoughtful manner. Problems can spread, initiated by some of the most benign appearing circumstances, and race along surprising pathways, to ignite the most calamitous disasters. Hey, let's be careful out there. -HSB 7:12 A.M.

ditto that

Triple-ditto. What an abandonment of responsibility by the aircraft company and tire vendor.

When have you ever known any country, not just France, to take responsibility for an accident like this?

They also had other problems with it. The one time it came here(New Zealand) it lost a significant chunk of the rudder when it flew from here to Australia. www.airwaysmuseum.com/aircraft%20images/Concorde-G-BOAF-SY-4-89-KW-2.jpg The higher French court ultimately overturned most of the charges.

Its nice to see people with common sense, thank you. But yeah innocent people always have to die first before stuff gets changed