Cracks in the Concorde & thoughts/opinions on crash

[BCinSC]

You'd figure at US$10K per seat, they could spend a little on maintenance.

I want to say upfront that this is a horrible tragedy and that my prayers and thoughts are for the people who lost their lives and their families. I believe this to be purely human error and an unfortunate and avoidable loss.

 

[nickdakick]

Where did you get this from ? A link would have been helpful.

 

[BCinSC]

It's all over the news this morning - CNN, NBC, Papers. Story belongs to Reuters.

Here's CNN's link
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/07/23/concorde.cracks.reut/index.html

As for cost per seat, go to British Airways website or Expedia.com

 

[nickdakick]

As you can see in my profile, not everybody posting here lives in the US´. THX for the link.

 

[BCinSC]

Forgive my ignorance. It is so awesome to be conversing with someone nearly on the other side of the world. Where in Germany? I long to visit your country, having been to England, France and Italy.

 

[Nick Stone]

Cracks in airframe components are routine. Replacing the structural component and patching the cracks are also routine. Monitoring non-crical components that have cracks is also routine. Unfortunately undetected cracks in older airframes, especially those that lead a stressful life or are based or fly into an ocean (seawater is corrosive) environment are prone to have cracks.
B-52s and *-135s (like a Boeing 707) will probably be forced to fly for nearly 100 years until the year 2050. Guess how many times those airframe components will be replaced. (yes, it's expensive)
BTW I work in this environment and occasionally talk to the inspectors and decision makers monitoring these old military aircraft. The Non-destructive inspection techniques used are impressive and expensive.
BTW the Concorde will soon be taken out of service because the airframe will be fatigued beyond it's life expectancy and it will not be ecconomical to repair.

 

[Capn]

There's cracks in the engines too. Makes you want to think about flying over the atlantic again doesn't it

 

[nickdakick]

BCinSC
in a midsize town just 50 km north of Munich(can you smell the beer ?), if yoú hurry up youz can be here in time for the famous Oktoberfest(beer smell again ?)

 

[DABANSHEE]

Once you take into account the mileage of those concords which are arround 25+ years old then thats to be expected.

But the fact is that even a 30 year old airliner with cracks in it is statistically safer to fly in, than walking across your own strret or driving to work in your own car.

I wished people kept these things in perpective - Gez, NASA recently leased one of those Russia TU144 aircraft ( Russia's alternative to the concord, which looks very similar, it even has a nose that drops down for take off & landing to aid pilots vision, except that it also has retractable Canard foreplanes, to decrease landing speeds as it was designed to cope with rough Siberian airfields) & even with the lackluster Russian maintenance regimes, they are having no peoblems with it - which is remarkable for a 30 year old mach2 airliner. They are using it for testing the effects near constant supersonic flight has on large airframes. As a part of Boeing's 40 year old on again/off again SST study.

 

[CyberSax]

While we're on the subject of airplanes, Airbus has a new dual-decker 550 seater airplane, that's 10% larger than the Boeing 747. It has sleeping berths, a casino, and a library. Can't wait to take a ride on one of those

 

[gtbuzz]

i don't see those as being very popular. iirc, they're like $60 million more than a 777. and a whole lot more maintanance.

 

[Topher]

Apparantly, all 7 Concordes have cracks in the wings. It's just that on one of them, the crack is enlarging.

nickdakick - how far are you from Markneukirchen?

 

[Harvey]

YIKES!!! At 10,000 ft. + and Mach 1+, gravity is not your friend. :Q

 

[CyberSax]

Have Concordes expanded their routes any? Or are they still running the London-NYC, Paris-NYC routes?

 

[The Wildcard]

I love the part in the article that says they detected the cracks several months ago but did nothing. REALLY SMART!!!

 

[Capn]

Dude go read up on some stress and failure analysis. Cracks are a part of life in any high stress situation. Just depending on the size you don't need to worry about them. I'm sure there's a significant factor of safety in the concorde design anyways. Bring in any aircraft that's been out in the field a while and I'm certain you can find cracks.

 

[nickdakick]

Topher:
Where's that supposed to be ? Don't know the place, plus there are a lot of Neukirchen's in Bavaria, 'cause there have been a lot of "new churches" built over the centuries.

 

[chansen]

BCinSC,

One JUST crashed today, outside of Paris. I remembered seeing this thread last night. No details yet...

I am not kidding.

Craig

 

[oldandquitemad]

unfortunately, the timimg of the crash (although it may be engine related) does bring the whole crack deal into very sharp focus.

 

[Nick Stone]

For those who have never worked in jobs related to the jet engine overhaul business. A typical overhaul includes teardown, cleaning, inspection, rework (welding cracks, replacing worn surfaces,(plating) matching components, and reassembly and testing.
At least 25% of the inspection time is spent searching for cracks and maybe 20% of the total rework time is spent grinding out cracks and welding new metal in place to repair the component.
Most people have no idea that finding and fixing cracks is routine business. There can easily be 100's of repaired cracks in any one engine.
However, it is serious business. The last thing anyone wants is for an accident review board to discover that a crack that wasn't caught was responsible for the distruction of an engine.

 

[BCinSC]

Condolences to the families of those on board.

 

[CyberSax]

There may not necessarily be any connection between the reported cracks in the Concorde, and this morning's crash. They haven't confirmed the cause of the engine failure yet.

 

[Capn]

Sounds like a catastrophic engine failure or fuel problem. Cracks in the structure would cause a body failure (i.e. wing falling off)..

 

[BiB]

Its uncanny this thread was started a day before the crash.

 

[BCinSC]

Judging from the latest picture and eyewitness reports, flames were spirting out the back like someone left the gas cap off.