Air France yesterday took the highly unusual step of issuing a detailed statement explaining exactly what happened in the minutes leading up to the crash of its Concorde.
At 2.30 p.m. an airline spokesman handed a single sheet of paper to journalists waiting at the company headquarters in Roissy, part of the Charles de Gaulle airport complex. It gave two reasons for "the delay" of flight AF4590.
Air France said the first reason for the delay was that the 100 passengers "on this very special flight" had very short connections at the Paris airport. Because of the late arrival of their luggage from Frankfurt, flight AF4590 was delayed.
But the sheet of paper also revealed that during a flight from John F. Kennedy airport in New York arriving back last Monday, the captain of the aircraft had reported that the system that reverses the thrust of the engine was not working.
It said that the spare part for the reverse thrusters was not immediately available from the "parts warehouse" in Paris.
The statement went on: "Given the technical tolerance authorised by the manufacturer, the aircraft could take off again without being repaired . . ."
This information was presented to the captain of flight AF4590, who decided to overrule the advice and have the spare part installed.
The part was immediately obtained from another Concorde, Air France said, and the repairs took 30 minutes to carry out.
Under aviation rules, which apply to all airlines, the captain has the ultimate responsibility for control of an aircraft. If he thinks there is a problem, he is bound to ignore any commercial pressures placed on him to take off.
Speaking on Channel 4 television news, Mr Bill Tench, Britain's former chief air accident investigator, suggested last night that the mechanics would have been under great pressure to complete the work in order to meet the flight's departure slot.
"It's possible that in their hurry to change the component, a panel was not completely replaced. Consequently when the pilot opened the throttle, I'm pretty sure the suction would pull the panel out and break the compressor [in the engine] into pieces," he said.
The airport's emergency services had been scrambled as the plane began to take off and problems with the number two engine became apparent. As the plane left the ground, airport staff said flames were clearly visible streaming from the affected engine.
The conversation taped on the cockpit voice recorder between the pilot, Christian Marty, and air traffic controllers reveals that 56 seconds into the run the rear of the aircraft was belching flames. The runway was too short to allow the pilot to abort the take-off.
Rachel Donnelly adds: A British Airways pilot yesterday suggested that his colleagues might have been able to save the Concorde flight if they had raised the undercarriage.
The pilot, who spoke to reporters on condition of confidentiality, said his colleagues could not understand why the aircraft's undercarriage was not raised. Asked if the airline would be commenting on the reported comments of one of its pilots, a British Airways spokeswoman told The Irish Times: "No, of course not. It is pure speculation."