French Investigators Study Wreckage of ConcordeFrench investigators are studying piece by piece the wreckage of the Concorde plane which crashed Tuesday in order to figure out the exact conditions of the disaster.While the two black boxes -- one registering the conversation between the crew and the control tower and the other containing the technical data of the flight -- have been analyzed, investigators are prudent about the definite cause of the crash. The analysis of the black boxes showed that the left engine number two of the Concorde broke down and caught fire as the plane took off on the runway of the Roissy airport. The rear side of the plane caught fire when the plane was gaining speed on the runway, according to the control tower of the airport. It was on flame when rising into the sky and half of it was engulfed by fire before the crash, according to a video tape shot by a woman who was riding in her husband's truck near the site of the accident. The experts are bringing more than 100,000 pieces of the wreckage to the factory of Concorde while leaving signs of their positions on the site of the disaster. They will reconstruct the plane as much as possible with the pieces of the wreckage to study each piece and compare it with the norms and specifications when the plane was constructed. Meanwhile, more than 200 gendarmerie policemen are having hearings with the air controllers and mechanics who joined the technical reparation of the failed engine soon before the plane took off. The engine number two underwent a technical reparation shortly before the plane took off. But an official of Air France told the daily Le Monde that the reparation could not be the cause of the fire which broke out from the engine. |
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