ETHICAL CASE STUDY ENGINEERING ETHICS LAB

NAME: MALHAR S PATIL.

PRN: 1601052

THE CONCORDE CRASH

OVERVIEW:

• The concorde was joint engineering project and management between Briton and
France. It was first ever supersonic passenger aircraft to fly. The project began in
early 1960s, however the first concorde flew in 1976.
THE CRASH OF CONCORDE:
• Most engineering disasters particularly those involving comples systems seldom
occur for more than one major reason. There are multiple sub factors involved.
• The crash occurred on July 2000 of flight 4590 from Paris de Gaulle airport France.
• The passengers on the airplane were allowed to carry luggage more than
the normal limits. The investigation proved that the flight was slightly
overweight than its recommended weight of 408,009 lbs.
• As the pilot was preparing four rolls Royce engines for full throttle, Cpt Marty
didn’t knew that a Continental Airline DC­10 gad recently taken off the
same runway which had dropped a titanium makeshift wear strip on the
runway.
• When 4590 sped down the runway her tires encountered titanium wear strip
that had fallen from DC­10. The metal sliced the left side of the tire which
resulted in large pieces of rubber at 300mph strike hydraulic lines and
electric wires.
• The fuel began to pour from ruptured wing with sparks from torn electric
wires.
• The concorde never got above 200ft and crashed in less than 2min later to
the nearby hotel which was 6 miles away.
• All 100 passengers along with 9 crew members and 4 people inside the
hotel were killed.
CONSEQUENCES:

• Ruptured • July 25 • France

What problem

When

Where
tire 2000 de
• Concord 16:45 hrs Gaulle ,
e crash Paris.
• Loss of • Hotel
lives and Gonesse.
property.
IMPACT TO GOALS:

• 113 • Loss of • First

Property
Safety

Frequency
fatalities. aircraft. concorde
• 100 • Total loss of lost in
passengers, 125 million 40000
9 crew USD. flights
members, 4 (900,000hrs).
ground
people.
IMPACT ON STAKEHOLDERS:

• The crash resulted in the loss of aircraft worth 127 million USD.
• The project was 3 years behind and 15 times over budget. This resulted in
economy crisis.
• Hefty passenger tickets worth 12000USD caused passengers to switch
towards alternatives.
• The overall budget costed 1.3billion GBP for 20 commercial aircrafts and
development.
RECOMMENDATIONS:

• The concorde had a bitter history regarding its tires. Due to its heavy weight
and drag, the tires failed after every 4000 flying hours which was 60 times
more frequent than the average airplane.
• The pilot decided to take­off the plane on same runway which was used by
flight DC­10. The runway­26 maintenance team didn’t inspect the runway
after the DC­10 take­off.
CONCLUSION:

• The careless of the maintenance team of runway 26 and development of

concorde resulted the crash which is known as one of the biggest disasters
in aircraft history.
• High maintenance cost and hefty passenger tickets caused the concorde
to cancel the program in 2003, 3 years after the crash.
IMAGES: