Cause of Concorde Crash Could Take 18 Months

July 31 -- Concorde crash investigators said it could take more than 18 months to determine what caused the Concorde to crash minutes after takeoff.

“We are at the beginning of a difficult investigation,” saidAlain Monnier, head of a special inquiry commission investigating the crash that killed 113 people.

Air France’s five remaining supersonic airliners were grounded immediately after Tuesday’s crash just north of Paris, which killed all 109 aboard the plane and four people on the ground.

But with the world’s only other Concorde operator, British Airways, resuming its flights within 24 hours of the accident, the pressure is on the French state-controlled airline to follow suit.

In a meeting in Paris today, British and Frenchaviation officials examined how to improve safety in hopes ofgetting France’s grounded Concorde fleet airborne again followingthe July 25 crash.

Representatives of the French civil aviation authority, the General Direction for Civil Aviation, as well as officials from the British and French engine manufacturers Rolls-Royce and Air France attended the meeting, which will continue Tuesday.

A Time Bomb Today’s meeting came as a leading German aviation expert called the Concorde a “flying time bomb.”

Speaking from Berlin, Elmar Giemulla compared taking off in one of the aging supersonic jets to a game of roulette and said the jet should be taken out of service.

Giemulla, an expert in aviation law, said serious problems involving a Concorde — including incidents that require the jet to return to the airport — occur about once a month.

On Sunday, the French Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) said a ruptured fuel tank is responsible for the flames which spewed from the Concorde as it sped down the runway to its doom.

Investigators have confirmed that a piece of a fuel tank was found amid the debris on the runway the plane used to take off. French officials believe that fuel tanks might have been torn open by debris from a burst wheel, with the subsequent fire knocking out one engine and crippling another.