British and French investigation authorities will explain today their reasons for recommending the grounding of the entire British Airways Concorde fleet. The recommendation could signal the end of supersonic travel.
British Airways was notified by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) of the Department of Transport yesterday that its certificate of airworthiness was about to be revoked. BA immediately suspended its Concorde operation.
The airline withdrew the 10.30 a.m. BA001 departure from London to New York, which was on the runway preparing to take off from Heathrow Airport when it was recalled. Passengers were transferred to alternative services.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which regulates the issuing of certificates of airworthiness in the UK, revealed that accident investigators now believe that a single burst tyre caused last month's Air France Concorde crash near Paris, which killed 113 people. The CAA will outline its reasons for accepting the accident investigators' recommendation to withdraw the certificate of airworthiness today.
The CAA said it had become aware of the likely interim finding of the joint accident investigators that a single burst tyre was the cause of the crash. In the light of that information, it said: "We now take the view that the certificate of airworthiness should be suspended to enable further measures to be considered to ensure that a satisfactory level of safety exists with regard to the risks associated with tyre bursts on Concorde."
The recommendation from the AAIB and its French counterpart, the Bureau Enquetes Accidents (BEA), to suspend the certificate of airworthiness comes as part of their continuing investigation. Air France grounded its Concorde fleet after the crash, but after cancelling two of its flights, British Airways resumed its service with the support of the regulatory authorities.
Explaining yesterday's decision, the chief executive of British Airways, Mr Rod Eddington, said the company's first concern was safety. All its aircraft were subject to "continuing and exhaustive" safety checks, he said.
"We were notified this morning by the AAIB that, in the light of latest information available to it, it and its French counterparts, the BEA, would tomorrow recommend that the certificate of airworthiness for the aircraft be suspended," he said.
Mr Malcolm English, editor of Air International magazine, told The Irish Times it was possible that supersonic flight on Concorde could end as a result of the CAA's decision. "It's got to be a possibility when a certificate of airworthiness has been revoked as it has been in this situation," Mr English said. "Because it is not financially viable, it is possible that remedial action may have to be taken that might make its future operation untenable."
Mr David Wilshire MP said the CAA should explain why it had reversed its decision. "This is a fundamental U-turn after the Civil Aviation Authority had said it was safe to continue flying," he said. "They must tell us what they have learned, when they learned it and why they did not err on the side of caution in the beginning."
But the grounding of the Concorde fleet was welcomed by the passenger authority, the Air Transport Users' Council (ATUC), which said the decision proved the investigation into the Paris crash was successful.
A spokesman for the ATUC said: "They have obviously unearthed information that they weren't aware of before. It is very sad for the relatives of the people who died, but often accidents do lead to improvements in safety because they throw things up that haven't come up before."