Concorde Crash/co Mechanic

kiowa

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Aug 27, 2002
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does anyone fly these crappy dc-10s anymore?




International Arrest Warrant for a US Mechanic

A French judge tasked with finding who was to blame for the 2000 Concorde crash in Paris is to issue an international arrest warrant for a US mechanic employed by Continental Airlines who failed to obey a summons for questioning, law enforcement officials said overnight.

The warrant for John Taylor is to be signed by judge Christophe Regnard. Once issued it will automatically designate Taylor as being under criminal investigation for manslaughter, a status that places him one step away from a formal indictment and trial.

Taylor was the mechanic who fitted a non-standard titanium strip to a Continental DC-10 which used the runway at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport immediately before the ill-fated Concorde.

A French accident inquiry concluded in December that the strip, which fell off the DC-10 and lay on the runway, played a “directâ€￾ role in the fiery Concorde crash which killed all 109 people on the supersonic plane and four people on the ground on July 25, 2000.

The superhard titanium strip shredded one of the Concorde’s tyres, sending heavy chunks of rubber through a fuel tank located on one of its delta-shaped wings, causing it to explode and bring the aircraft crashing to earth in a fireball.

Taylor allegedly fixed the titanium alloy part instead of a softer metal strip in Continental’s plane maintenance unit in Houston, Texas, even though its use was not sanctioned by US civil aviation authorities, French prosecutors said.
 
kiowa said:
does anyone fly these crappy dc-10s anymore?

Northwest is the only US carrier still operating 10s on scheduled services.
Omni and World also still have a handful of them (non-sked).
 
jimntx said:
Hey, now. According to the more senior f/as I know at AA and CO, the DC-10 was a wonderful airplane to work. So, let's not go puttin' the bad mouth on the 10. :lol:
[post="296160"][/post]​
The pilots loved it also.
 
mga707 said:
Northwest is the only US carrier still operating 10s on scheduled services.
Omni and World also still have a handful of them (non-sked).
[post="296097"][/post]​

Guess I should have clarified that NW is the only US scheduled operator of PASSENGER DC-10s.
FedEx, of course, still has a boat load of 'em (many converted to two-crew MD-10 standard), and World also has a few 10Fs.
 
kiowa said:
Taylor allegedly fixed the titanium alloy part instead of a softer metal strip in Continental’s plane maintenance unit in Houston, Texas, even though its use was not sanctioned by US civil aviation authorities, French prosecutors said.
[post="295859"][/post]​

Actually, the material substitution tables in the DC-10 Structural Repair Manual are rather broad in their scope and may indeed have "sanctioned" the use of some titanium alloys.

Not that we should let that get in the way of a good international incident or a 'trial by media'.