Concorde, Air France Flight 4590, Gonesse, France - Plane Crash Sites on Waymarking.com

[FR] Le vol 4590 d'Air France était le nom du trajet aérien de type charter opéré par le Concorde F-BTSC entre l'aéroport Charles de Gaulle près de Paris et l'aéroport John F. Kennedy de New York.

Le bilan humain de la catastrophe est lourd : 100 passagers, 9 membres d'équipage et 4 personnes au sol qui se trouvaient dans l'hôtel ont été tués.

La majorité des victimes sont allemandes originaire de la ville de Mönchengladbach, elles effectuaient pour la plupart leur premier voyage en Concorde et s'apprêtaient à passer ensuite des vacances en croisière.

L'accident fait suite à une collision entre le pneu avant droit du train gauche et une lamelle métallique appartenant à l'avion qui l'avait précédé (un DC-10 de Continental Airlines), qui fit éclater un pneu et endommagea la structure, l'intrados de l'aile au niveau des réservoirs. Le personnel navigant technique décida de virer et d'aller se poser sur l'aéroport du Bourget. Puis, en quelques secondes, le moteur deux puis le moteur un s'arrêtèrent.

[EN] Air France Flight 4590 was a Concorde flight from Charles de Gaulle International Airport near Paris, France to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, New York, and operated by Air France.

The flight was chartered by German company Peter Deilmann Cruises and all passengers were on their way to board the MS Deutschland cruise ship in New York City for a 16-day cruise to South America. Three children were on the flight.

During the plane's take-off run from Charles de Gaulle Airport, a piece of titanium debris on the runway shredded a tyre, which then burst. The piece was about three centimetres wide and nearly 50 centimetres long. A large chunk of tyre (4.5 kg) struck the underside of the aircraft's wing at over 300 km/h, causing the fuel tank above the landing gear to fail from the inside out, possibly by a hydrodynamic pressure surge. Leaking fuel was ignited by an electric arc in the landing gear bay or through contact with the hot parts of the engine (the latter is disputed by the British investigators). At the point of ignition, engines 1 and 2 both surged and lost all power, but slowly recovered over the next few seconds. A large plume of flame developed; the crew then shut down engine 2 in response to a fire warning.

Having passed V1 speed, the crew continued the take-off but they could not gain enough airspeed on the three remaining engines, because the undercarriage could not be retracted. The aircraft was unable to climb or accelerate, and it maintained a speed of 200 knots (370 km/h) at an altitude of 200 feet (60 m). The fire caused damage to the port wing. Engine 1 surged again but this time failed to recover. Due to the asymmetric thrust, the starboard wing lifted, banking the aircraft to over 100 degrees. The crew reduced the power on engines 3 and 4 to attempt to level the aircraft but with falling airspeed they lost control, crashing into the Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus Hotel near the airport.

The crew was trying to divert to nearby Le Bourget Airport; accident investigators say that a safe landing with the flight path the aircraft was on would have been highly unlikely.

Concorde had been the safest working passenger airliner in the world according to passenger deaths per distance travelled. The crash of the Concorde was the beginning of the end of its career.

A few days after the crash, all Concordes were grounded, pending an investigation into the cause of the crash and possible remedies.

(from wikipedia)

Web Address for Related Web Sites: [Web Link] Date of Crash: 07/25/2000 Aircraft Model: Concorde Military or Civilian: Civilian Cause of Crash: See Long Description Tail Number: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Only log waymarks if you have visited the site personally.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   11/18/2016 Tromel visited it 07/01/2009 tah visited it

View all visits/logs