Word: runway
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...France Flight 4590 taxied into position on Charles de Gaulle Airport's Runway 24, Captain Christian Marty's eyes would have carefully scanned the 1960s-era round gauges in the Concorde's cockpit for any signs that the No. 2 engine was acting up. He didn't need the engine's thrust reversers--which are used to slow the plane on landing--during takeoff, but Marty had ordered them repaired just before leaving the gate. The engine, on the left side, would bear watching. Marty and his co-pilot, Jean Marcot, and the flight engineer ran through the normal takeoff...
...pilots do, Marty and Marcot would have taken one last, careful look down the runway, looking for objects on it--anything from a stray airport truck to the dreaded flocks of birds, which have caused problems for pilots at Charles de Gaulle for years. Marty knew the delicately engineered supersonic engines on the Concorde are particularly vulnerable to what the aviation community calls FOD: foreign-object damage. A piece of stray garbage, or rubber from a blown aircraft tire, passing through a high-speed turbine can cause the engine to fail--or worse. That is why military personnel usually scour...
There are three key speeds that jet jockeys worry about when they are rolling down a runway: V1, VR and V2. Marcot would have called out the speeds as they passed by: V1, the "takeoff-decision speed," at which pilots decide to continue or abort their takeoff; VR, the speed at which the pilot lifts the nose; and V2, the speed at which the plane leaves the ground. After passing V1, pilots are trained how to continue the takeoff--even if an engine fails or a tire blows. Somewhere between V1 and V2, things went wrong for Flight...
...with two engines apparently failing, the Concorde's fate was sealed. "The Concorde is a technical masterpiece, but with two engines failing and a fire on takeoff, the crew had little real hope," says former pilot Manton Fain. About a minute after lifting off, four miles from the runway's end, the plane rolled left and slammed into the ground. Its more than 31,500 gal. of jet fuel erupted in an instant inferno. All 100 passengers--mostly German tourists--and nine crew members were killed, along with five people who were in the small hotel the plane plowed into...
...crash was French President Jacques Chirac, who had just returned from Tokyo on an Air France flight. Chirac's plane had been taxiing toward the terminal but paused to let the Concorde take off. As Chirac and his wife watched the pride of French technology speed down the runway, they were appalled to see flames shooting from its left side, then the cloud of smoke that followed the crash. Chirac's first instinct was to rush to the scene, but he decided his presence would complicate rescue efforts. He returned to the presidential palace, where he telephoned his condolences...