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From the BBC Website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4285832.stm

<font color=yellow>A former head of the French Concorde programme has been placed under formal investigation over a Concorde crash in July 2000 in which 113 people died.
Henri Perrier, who worked for the firm Aerospatiale, is being investigated for involuntarily causing death and injury.

Mr Perrier is accused of having been told about faults in the aircraft but having done nothing to put them right.

The Air France Concorde caught fire and crashed soon after take-off from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport.

Mr Perrier had worked on the Concorde programme since the plane's launch in the 1960s.

Chief engineer at the time of the supersonic plane's first test flight in 1969, he directed the Concorde programme in the 1980s and early 90s.

Runway debris

He was placed under formal investigation - one step short of formal charges - after being questioned for 11 hours on Monday by an investigating judge in Paris.

Mr Perrier made no comment when he emerged from questioning with his lawyers, the AFP news agency reports.

A lawyer representing some of the victims has welcomed the investigation.

Three other former Aerospatiale executives are also to be called before the judge.

Aerospatiale is now part of EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company), the majority owner of Airbus. A spokeswoman for Airbus said the company had no comment to make on the case involving the retired Aerospatiale executives.

Earlier this year Continental Airlines and one of its mechanics were also placed under formal investigation.

Inquiries had revealed that debris from a Continental DC-10 on the runway had caused the Concorde's tyre to burst.

Fragments from the tyre then punctured the plane's fuel tanks, causing the fire. </font id=yellow>

You're born, you keep your head down and you die. If you're lucky...

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Mr Perrier is accused of having been told about faults in the aircraft but having done nothing to put them right.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>



Oooooo... a provacative statement. I'll guess that they have some statements or memos by Mr. Perrier that tells his engineering staff to concentrate on meeting requirements and stop escalating weight and cost by adding features not required by regulation. I'll also guess that at the time the memos were written, the predicted performance of the aircraft was 100 miles short of the Paris to New York goal and the whole program was in jeopardy.

This lawsuit should go nowhere for two reasons. The biggest one is that there is no money to be had by suing an individual. The insurance companies have the deep pockets, and it's all about money, not "justice", isn't it? Secondly, there is no way this fluke accident reflects on the basic design of the aircraft. It met all the FAR and JAR requirements of its day as attested by the Concorde type certificate. It was flying without seious incident for over 25 years, so the design criteria seem solid to me. It is a favorable comparison to contemporary subsonic jets. If people want to make a difference, then lobby to change the rules in the FARs and JARs to say that the fuel tanks need to be designed (armored?) to survive exploding tire debris. Of course it would increase purchase and operating costs (and ticket prices) to do so on new designs and retrofit old ones, but if that is what the public wants, so be it. If there was anything substantial to this line of thinking, why did it take 5 years to bring it up.

It ain't the heat it's the humility.

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