There's a lot of rumour and misinformation going around about this incident.I would suggest anyone with a spare few minutes head over to Airliners.net and read the posts on this matter by "GDB" who is a former BA Concorde engineer and was involved in the early aspects of the investigation. He knows more about this than any of us here, and seems pretty satisfied with the official accident report.This incident happened to a French aeroplane at a French airport. It has nothing to do with the English or US courts. The Francophobia that is being displayed by many people in aviation forums across the internet is pretty apparent.Consider how many parties were involved in this investigation... BEA, Air France, CAA, British Airways, FAA, Continental, EADS/Airbus, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce... If there were some conspiracy to point the finger at the evil Americans and save Gallic Pride then it's got to be a pretty damn good cover up seeing as nobody is contesting this verdict!

The problem here is that under English law there is the problem of precedent. Meaning that in future any airline or manufacturer "could" theoretically be prosecuted for any piece of metal found on the rwy. That said pieces would constitute a risk of involountary manslaughter, for example.vololiberista

I've never studied law, but to my knowledge, as the French court does not practice common law, its decision can't set a precedent in English courts.

I've never studied law, but to my knowledge, as the French court does not practice common law, its decision can't set a precedent in English courts.

Of course. If this happened at JFK the outcome of the investigation would have been far different. Air France had a number of contributing factors in this incident as well. But all the same the Continental strip of steel on the runway would have been noticed as well. That was an FAA Violation and would have been noticed on US soil. But they would have not gone so easy on Air France.Another criminal case (although not aviation) is Amanda Knox in Italy, it is a good example of the differences between American and Italian courts as well as public perceptions. Every country has a different way of doing things and different laws as well as a national bias.

The purpose of the court case was not to establish the cause of the crash, it was to establish if anyone broke French law.In this case there were undoubtedly lots of contributing factors, and one of them was most definitely a breach of French law - that is what this court case was about.Unfortunately lots of people don't quite understand this and see the court as passing verdict on the entire incident and not just the criminal aspect.

I wonder how far the legal battles will go, and to what degree of financial compensation will be laid down.The 'official' reason why both Airlines stopped flying Concorde was because (as they claimed) passenger numbers never recovered after the crash, and along with higher fuel costs and taxes it was no longer financially viable to continue flying her.I wonder if BA blame either party for the consequences. I admit I would be pretty peeved off if an accident that could have so easily been avoided had grounded my flagship product. But then I wonder whether BA were actually relieved to have ceased Concorde operations as I understand it was always a technical and financial nightmare.

Samwise: I think it would have been the latter under most circumstances but I believe they were actually making money off the concorde in the later years.

I wonder how far the legal battles will go, and to what degree of financial compensation will be laid down.The 'official' reason why both Airlines stopped flying Concorde was because (as they claimed) passenger numbers never recovered after the crash, and along with higher fuel costs and taxes it was no longer financially viable to continue flying her.I wonder if BA blame either party for the consequences. I admit I would be pretty peeved off if an accident that could have so easily been avoided had grounded my flagship product. But then I wonder whether BA were actually relieved to have ceased Concorde operations as I understand it was always a technical and financial nightmare.

Another reason was that EADS no longer wanted to provide naintenance services and werr np longer prepared to hold Concorde's Type Certificate. Without a Type Certificate an aircraft can't be granted a Certificate of Airworthiness.

The Paris court has found Continental responsible for the Air France Concorde crash back in July 2000.They have been fined £170,000 and ordered to pay £1m Euros to Air France.Full article can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk...europe-11923556

"Portraying the metal strip as the cause of the accident, and Continental and one of its employees as the sole guilty parties, shows the determination of the French authorities to shift attention and blame away from Air France, which was government-owned at the time and operated and maintained the aircraft, as well as from the French authorities responsible for the Concorde's airworthiness and safety." The appeal will most likely be based on the fuel tanks not being better made. As someone stated in another thread sometime ago, " It would cost too much money to get "Concorde" flying again. Also why didn't the airport check the runway before the concorde took off?

British Airways had installed a "guard" by the wheels, but Air France didn't want to. This omission may have saved their Concorde. :(

That and the fact that BA weren't using remoulded tires on their Concordes, as Air France were (and anyone with a car knows how dodgy they can be).Any US legal team worth its salt is going to be all over that fact like a rash if the case ever goes to court.Al

British Airways had installed a "guard" by the wheels, but Air France didn't want to. This omission may have saved their Concorde. :(

http://bit.ly/g7g70tAre you talking about the guard that's clearly visible in this photo?

There is a great deal of misunderstanding in this thread.The primary cause of the accident was that Concorde ran over a metal strip that fell off the Continental aircraft. The evidence shows that it was wrongly fitted - wrong material, no template used to drill the holes. The consequences that a tyre failed, the wing was punctured, fuel was released, a fire was started and the aircraft destroyed. But for the failure of the strip the acccident would never have happened.The court decided that the strip was fitted negligently, and on the evidence it's difficult to see what other verdict it could have given. Consider sections 1.12.1.3, 1.16.6.1-6, 2.6 of the BEA Report. The latter is quite damning:"In fact, over a period of little more than a month, the part had been replaced during a C check, had become detached and twisted and had again been replaced, this time by a part which was not in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications, this one being the one which fell off on 25 July 2000...Facts established concerning the metallic strip and the aircraft reveal inadequate adherence to maintenance procedures by the various workshops that carried out work on the reverser cowl. Thus the engine cowl support was drilled with thirty-seven holes whereas the installation of the strip requires only twelve; equally, a titanium piece was used in Houston along with a mastic which is not normally used for this operation; finally the lower right wear strip was too long compared to the specification, which helps to explain the successive tearing off of the strip located opposite." The strips kept coming off and Continent just kept putting them back on without a thought. Fig 52 in the BEA report shows the lace-like effect of having 37 holes when only 12 are needed.Whether or not lives would have been saved if other things had been done is not relevant to the particular charge. There is a principle that "you take your victim as you find him". The leading case in England is R v Blaue (1976) where woman was stabbed and died. She was a Jehovah's Witness and refused a blood transufusion, It was accepted by both sides in court that she wouldn't have died if she'd had a transfusion. But the accused was still convicted of manslaughter an that principle.