The Achievements and Failures of Concorde Aircrafts

One of the most impressive innovations of the 20th century was the ability of mankind to invent aircraft that enable us to travel to vast distances in a short amount of time by flying through the sky at very fast speeds. However, the danger of flying high in the sky and at blazingly fast speeds also exposes passengers to the risk of potential mechanical malfunctions and fatal crashes ( such as the tragic Value Jet 592 accident). Although the majority of airplanes reach their destinations safely, over the past century planes have periodically experienced accidents and crashes, with most incidents causing fatalities for the passengers and problems for the airliners. Concorde aircraft were discontinued from use as passenger planes because of the shocking crash of Air France Flight 4590, the airplane terrorist attacks of 9/11 that occurred shortly after the crash, and the detrimental impact that the Concorde project had on the European economy.

Concorde aircrafts represented a significant achievement for the aviation industry and for the western world. Funded by the British and French governments, Concordes were built with the cooperation of British Airways and Air France in 1969, and the planes officially entered the market as commercial aircraft in 1976. There were many advantages that enabled Concorde to become an immensely popular and widely used passenger airline for people who were traveling across vast distances. The aircraft are built with powerful engines and an aerodynamic shape that allowed the crafts to travel at incredibly fast speeds, as many Concordes were capable of flying at a Mach 2 pace of about 1,350 miles per hour, which is twice the speed of sound and which was by far the fastest commercial aircraft ever flown. The impressive supersonic ability of the planes to travel twice the speed of sound caused the planes to produce a loud and thunderous sonic boom sound that people on the ground could only hear long after the blazing airplane had already passed the area. The fast speeds encouraged many passengers to use the Concorde airline to fly back and forth from the United States to Europe, and often from New York or Washington to London or Paris, for Concordes were capable of completing the trans-Atlantic flights in under half the time that all other commercial airlines could complete the flights.

Another benefit of Concordes that enabled the aircraft to fly at faster speeds was that the crafts could travel at much greater heights than most other aircraft. The advanced mechanical construction and superior aerodynamic design allowed the planes to travel at about 60,000 feet or 11 miles high in the air, which was almost twice as high as most other commercial planes. The ability to travel at much higher altitudes allowed the planes to fly without being impeded upon or inconvenienced by air traffic from other airlines, which increased the pace of the long-distance flights and which eliminated any dangers of the speedy aircrafts experiencing accidents or collisions related to congested air traffic. Thus, the significantly greater heights and the glaringly faster speeds at which the Concorde crafts could travel through the sky encouraged many people to utilize the aircraft to travel between the US and Europe, and the initial popularity of the crafts caused British Airways and Air France to develop 20 Concorde aircraft and to use 14 of the planes for passenger flights. Additionally, each flight could hold about 100 passengers, and the expensive cost of the plane tickets for all of the passengers enabled Concorde flights to make sufficient profits even if the planes were not entirely sold out.

Although the Concorde aircrafts initially impressed the world and obtained widespread popularity, in the early 2000s financial difficulties and the crash of Air France Flight 4590 generated a pivotal series of problems that culminated with the discontinuation of commercial Concorde flights. On July 25th of 2000, Air France 4590 was scheduled to depart from Paris and arrive in New York. However, the aircraft struggled to take off, could not successfully gain the correct amount of height after take-off, and a long streak of fire was visibly trailing from the back of the aircraft as it plummeted back down and crashed into a Paris hotel. The ensuing collision into the hotel resulted in a massive explosion and the deaths of 100 passengers, 9 crew members and 5 bystanders on the ground. The accident represented the first fatal crash in the history of the Concorde airline, and the dramatic photographic images of the crash, the explosive destruction of the collision, and the large fatality count of the accident shocked the entire world and caused the crash to receive an abundance of media attention.

The plane crashed approximately 60 seconds after taking off, and there are many theories regarding what mechanical parts of the plane malfunctioned and facilitated the deadly crash. The French accident investigation bureau conducted a thorough investigation of the fire and debris that resulted from the crash. According to the investigation, the accident was caused by the plane passing over a piece of metal that was lying on the runway and that burst a tire on the plane. After the tire broke, a large chunk of rubber flew into the fuel tank on the inside of a wing and caused jet fuel to rush out of a hole. The hot gasses then ignited the fire, severely damaged the number 2 engine, and caused the pilot of the plane to be utterly incapable of generating the appropriate amount of thrust or lift required to prevent the crash. Thus, the investigation condemned the mechanical failures of the Concorde planes, for a tire bursting and a piece of rubber becoming lodged in the fuel tank should not have been able to break the engine and facilitate a deadly crash. Many reports indicate that the crash was stimulated because the Concorde aircraft were insufficiently maintained and were in a substandard condition.

Investigations also revealed that there were minuscule fissures in the wings of several French and British Concordes and that the engine which failed and resulted in the crash was supposed to be repaired by a maintenance crew three days prior to takeoff. Although British Airways and Air France chose to continue to fly their Concordes in the days and weeks following the crash, soon the revelation that the crash may have been instigated by professional incompetence and mechanical malfunctions caused the company to lose credibility and amplified the public perception that Concorde planes were dangerous. This loss of credibility caused potential customers to become very reluctant to fly on aircraft made by an airline that has proved to be incapable of ensuring the safety of the passengers. As a result, the crash significantly damaged the reputation of the airline, generated the public perception that the aircraft were unreliable and dangerous, and caused the airline to suffer drastic financial losses as the airline struggled to fill seats on the flights following the crash.

About one month after the crash, the investigations that demonstrated company negligence also caused the CAA and the DGAC to officially withdraw and revoke the Certificate of Airworthiness for Concorde aircraft. When British Airways and Air France learned that the Certificate of Airworthiness was officially about to get revoked, the companies chose to suspend all Concorde airline flights indefinitely. However, the strip of metal that was lying on the runway was also determined to be responsible for the crash, for the entire chain of events that lead to the mechanical failure and the collision was first generated by that piece of metal. Because the investigations established that the strip of metal debris lying on the runway belonged to a Continental Airlines aircraft, Continental Airlines experienced extreme scrutiny and was eventually forced to stand trial on charges of manslaughter for allowing the metal strip to linger on the runway and puncture the tire of the Concorde, as this mistake resulted in the collision and the deaths of 114 people. Although Continental Airlines was found guilty of the manslaughter charges and was obligated to pay about $2.7 million as compensation for fines and damages, in 2012 a French appellate court overturned the ruling and ruled that a maintenance failure should not result in criminal charges. However, the dramatic episode of the Concorde crashing and Continental Airlines being held on trial for manslaughter caused consumers to develop a nervous and distrustful attitude regarding flying, and this pessimistic perception significantly diminished the profits that the European airline industries experienced in the year following the Air France Flight 4590 accident.

Although British Airways and Air France fulfilled several technical modifications on the mechanical parts of the Concorde aircraft and reopened the crafts for commercial flights in November of 2001, the events of 9/11 further diminished the appeal of the Concorde crafts. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, terrorists highjacked four planes in the northeast region of the United States. The terrorists took over the pilot cockpits and flew two planes into the World Trade Center buildings, one plane into the Pentagon, and another plane was targeting Washington D.C. when the heroic passengers became aware of the general intentions of the terrorists and took down the plane before it could reach D.C. Including the passengers on the highjacked airplanes and the victims in the targeted buildings, more than 3,000 people were murdered on the fateful and pivotal morning of September 11th. As a result, after the terrorist attack, many airlines shut down their services and kept all planes grounded for an extensive period of time, and after the chaos had subsided and planes were flying again, consumers were still understandably very fearful of flying and hesitant to travel by plane, which made it very difficult for airlines to fill seats. Thus, the reopening of the Concorde airline just two months after the intense and dramatic events of 9/11 represented very bad and unfortunate timing, for consumers were still overwhelmed with anxiety and were still fearful of flying because of the recent airplane highjacker terrorist attacks. The nervous atmosphere significantly reduced the number of people who were eager or willing to fly on Concorde aircraft which were already perceived to be dangerous because of the crash a year earlier.

Although Concorde passenger flights resumed in November of 2001 as planned, the airline was unable to overcome the challenges presented by the devastating Flight 4590 crash and the tragic events of 9/11. Before the Flight 4590 crash, the Concorde airline had flight deals with several wealthy business clients, including some of the biggest investment banks and multinational corporations in the world. However, because of the Concorde crash, the suspension of the airline, and the incidents of 9/11, when the Concorde airline was reopened in November of 2001, the large businesses and corporations were no longer interested in re-establishing contracts with the airline. The lack of investors and business contracts intensified the financial struggles that were already confronting the airline. Additionally, after the airline reopened consumers were also reluctant to pay expensive prices and fly on Concordes, and the lack of customers prevented the airline from being able to fill planes and required the airline to reduce its total number of flights from two transatlantic flights each day to only one flight each day. Along with the crash a year earlier, frequent occurrences of Concorde flights being delayed because of technical or mechanical problems further diminished the reputation and credibility of the airline. Thus, after the damaged reputation impaired the profit margins and the financial stability of the airline, Air France officially discontinued commercial Concorde flights in May of 2003, and British Airway conducted the very last Concorde passenger flight before also discontinuing its branch of the airline in October of 2003.

The 31-year history of the Concorde commercial airline and the crash of Flight 4590 that caused the inevitable demise of the airline were both detrimental to the European economy. The British and French Governments funded the Concorde project and invested an abundance of money into the airline. Although financial experts indicated that the project was unable to become profitable and yield a return for the government, because they already invested so much money and energy into the project, both governments continued to invest more funds into Concorde airplanes throughout the 90s to make improvements, expand the size of planes, and add innovative features to enhance the performance of the planes. However, the governments did not receive a return for their money during the 31-year history of the Concorde project, and the crash that eventually ended the airline ensured that the governments would never yield significant returns from the crafts. Thus, economic experts contend that Europe lost several billion dollars because of the Concorde project, and as a result the failure of the project significantly impaired the progress of the European economy and hampered the ability of Europe to recover from the 2008 global financial crisis. Furthermore, the mistake the governments made in continuing to invest more money into the Concorde project even when it proved incapable of yielding equitable returns led economists to refer to similar behavior in other companies as the Concorde effect. The Concorde effect has since been used to refer to any person or organization that seems unable to stop investing in a project that is failing because the organization has already invested a significant amount of funds into the project and is unwilling to completely surrender those funds. Thus, the Concorde project cost Europe a significant amount of money because the French and British governments provided excessive amounts of funding for the project, and the crash ensured that the project failed and that the governments could not ascertain significant returns from their investment.

The ability to fly to vast distances in a short amount of time is a significant technological innovation that enables people to visit diverse regions of the world, conduct business with other countries or take cathartic vacations. Although most flights operate effectively and reach the appropriate destination safely, the dependency on technological equipment and human competence deems that periodic aircraft accidents will inevitably occur and that airlines must make comprehensive efforts to prevent and minimize the risk of crashes. Concorde planes represented an impressive aviation achievement, for the planes demonstrated the potential of humans to build aircraft that fly at enormous heights, travel at blazingly fast supersonic speeds, and transport passengers to various locations in a very short amount of time. However, the devastating crash of Air France Concorde Flight 4590, the dramatic events of 9/11, and the detrimental impact that the Concorde project had on the European economy caused an extensive series of problems that eventually required the Concorde airline to officially discontinue its commercial flights.

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