I had recently been in touch with a former engineer who had worked on Concordes and now works on the 747 program. Through my extensive conversation with him, he had admitted the concorde had some flaws and that the engineers at Aérospatiale/BAC were concerned for the safety of the concorde pretty often. I was never mentioned the problems it had run into, but supposedly the concorde at the boeing museum can't fly again because the metal undercarriage had degraded so much that it was too much of a risk to tearing. He had claimed that the plane was always on edge of problems, and the former guys from Aérospatiale/BAC and airbus were concerned that the concorde would have a problem. It never had problems, except for that Air France flight, which wasn't it's fault. There aren't many safety records online about the concorde's supposed problems... Can anyone add to this, possibly with safety records or possibly the same concerns as this other engineer had? It was an interesting conversation I wish I had more time to talk with him about this.

-3star

MDGLongBeach wrote:

I had recently been in touch with a former engineer who had worked on Concordes and now works on the 747 program. Through my extensive conversation with him, he had admitted the concorde had some flaws and that the engineers at Aérospatiale/BAC were concerned for the safety of the concorde pretty often. I was never mentioned the problems it had run into, but supposedly the concorde at the boeing museum can't fly again because the metal undercarriage had degraded so much that it was too much of a risk to tearing. He had claimed that the plane was always on edge of problems, and the former guys from Aérospatiale/BAC and airbus were concerned that the concorde would have a problem. It never had problems, except for that Air France flight, which wasn't it's fault. There aren't many safety records online about the concorde's supposed problems... Can anyone add to this, possibly with safety records or possibly the same concerns as this other engineer had? It was an interesting conversation I wish I had more time to talk with him about this.

-3star

A blown tire leading to a catastrophic explosion is a design flaw.

It is always intriguing to hear insider stories/info first hand. Wish you would ask that engineer what the “pretty often” Concorde safety concerns were specifically, if you have any chance of further talk with him, of course providing he is willing to break it to anybody

i'll see him at the next young eagles event at KLGB, i'll ask him about it... I never knew that it suffered from tire problems...

flyingclrs727 wrote:

But it didn't have a perfect operational record except for the crash in 2000. There was a Concorde flight from IAD to CDG in 1979 that had wing damage from a blown tire at takeoff. A passenger noticed damage on the wing and was able to get a pilot to look at it before the plane got up to supersonic speed. Had it attempted to go supersonic, it probably would have disintegrated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 0f54ed97e8

I watched a Concorde doc on the Smithsonian Channel regarding the Air France crash in 2000. They stated that after the IAD blown tire in '79,
engineers came up with plan to add kevlar lining to the fuel tanks of Concorde, but the idea was rejected by
by Airbus mgmt as too expensive. They say that lining would have prevented the fire on the Air France Concorde

Forum member GDB formerly worked in Concorde Engineering at British Airways so if he comes across this thread, perhaps he will comment.

Sooner787 wrote:

flyingclrs727 wrote:

But it didn't have a perfect operational record except for the crash in 2000. There was a Concorde flight from IAD to CDG in 1979 that had wing damage from a blown tire at takeoff. A passenger noticed damage on the wing and was able to get a pilot to look at it before the plane got up to supersonic speed. Had it attempted to go supersonic, it probably would have disintegrated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 0f54ed97e8

I watched a Concorde doc on the Smithsonian Channel regarding the Air France crash in 2000. They stated that after the IAD blown tire in '79,
engineers came up with plan to add kevlar lining to the fuel tanks of Concorde, but the idea was rejected by
by Airbus mgmt as too expensive. They say that lining would have prevented the fire on the Air France Concorde

Airbus didnt make the concorde.

Antarius wrote:

Airbus didnt make the concorde.

No, but they as they are the successor company to the ones that did make Concorde, they became responsible for them and provided engineering and maintenance support to BA and AF.

MDGLongBeach wrote:

I had recently been in touch with a former engineer who had worked on Concordes and now works on the 747 program. Through my extensive conversation with him, he had admitted the concorde had some flaws and that the engineers at Aérospatiale/BAC were concerned for the safety of the concorde pretty often. I was never mentioned the problems it had run into, but supposedly the concorde at the boeing museum can't fly again because the metal undercarriage had degraded so much that it was too much of a risk to tearing. He had claimed that the plane was always on edge of problems, and the former guys from Aérospatiale/BAC and airbus were concerned that the concorde would have a problem. It never had problems, except for that Air France flight, which wasn't it's fault. There aren't many safety records online about the concorde's supposed problems... Can anyone add to this, possibly with safety records or possibly the same concerns as this other engineer had? It was an interesting conversation I wish I had more time to talk with him about this.

-3star

Oh Concorde was always at the edge. Ask anyone at BA who knew those working on the craft during that time, it was known.

I remember one particular BA flight with Rupert Murdoch and George Benson onboard that had a pretty big mechanical failure at supersonic speed and had to fly subsonic for the remainder of the flight. Honestly I do not remember the overall details, and this was one of many lets just say inflight "issues" over the Atlantic. Was it a safe aircraft?...not for me to say, but the mechanics at BA and AF poured a ton of time into keeping it in the air!!..not to mention the amount of money BA put behind it.

There is a great SSC doco out there "Concorde Around the World" charter worth watching, and take note, a mechanic flew with the plane around the world since it was visiting destinations that were not part of regular SSC ops, like YVR, HNL, SYD, NBO etc. What other aircraft can you think of that needs that sort of backup muscle?...lol. Obviously it made sense on a few levels since it was an expensive charter package, but still.

The flight went supersonic from JFK-YVR. Like i said, worth watching!! - see link below. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB-smagT0O4

Let's just remember the era that Concorde was designed and built in. No car totally based on 1960's technology would get anywhere near approval for new sale today (or even 30 years ago) in the West.

Without pushing close to the edge we, as a species, would never achieve anything.

I remember there was a handful of Concorde in the late '90s losing part of the rudder during supersonic flight. This came about at the time of rising concern over aging aircraft problems. Perhaps there are other small anomalies that the mechanics knew to "watch out for" that were never noticed in the wider aviation world.

I'd be highly cautious placing too much emphasis on the hearsay from a supposed engineer who may, or may not, have been Concorde endorsed. Like any other aircraft it had its foibles, which were certainly exacerbated by the fact it operated at the ragged edge of the performance envelope as a matter of routine. But calling it unsafe would be a gross miscarriage of justice - it performed splendidly for 3 decades before a chain of unfortunate events brought AF down near Paris. Note the word 'chain'; remove one or more of the links and it would have survived to fly another day.

LAXLHR wrote:

What other aircraft can you think of that needs that sort of backup muscle?...lol. Obviously it made sense on a few levels since it was an expensive charter package, but still

We carried engineers onboard 757s, 767s and 777s when performing charters to off-line stations plenty of times, often with a FAK in the back containing essential spares (including a main wheel). It's nothing unusual, and certainly nothing particular to Concorde. It's just an operationally sound policy, minimising the risk you get stranded with a sick bird in places with little or no engineering support.

We should also just be thankful that the '60's' happened.Very much imho the final culmination of the new technologies developed due the intense burst of technology in WW2 period.We had the Cold War ie Nuclear bombs,the space race ie Rocketary and Supersonic flight ie Jet engines all happening at the same time.None of which was financially sustainable in the long term.
It's interesting to note that now 50 plus years on some of these technologies are just reaching commercial maturity.
Mini nuclear power stations are being seriously planned/considered both on Earth and in space,Aerion et al are developing commercial supersonic transport and of course Spacex (and Jeff) for rocketry.
But it took the 60's to show what was possible even if not commercial.

The Concorde, Comet and the VC10 couldn't be built today with the engines slap bang next to each other.
Likewise the B747 couldn't be built to carry passengers forward of Door 1 if it was designed today, as there's only one way out and that's backwards from the nose.

It also had a second crash If you've ever watched the awful movie airport 79.

It was an aircraft designed half centuries ago when safety standard and our knowledge were still much less limited than what the industry have today.

This accident would not have happened at LHR, or to BA. The aircraft was overweight, the runway was not inspected, and I suspect the condition of the tyres might have played a role too.

uta999 wrote:

This accident would not have happened at LHR, or to BA. The aircraft was overweight, the runway was not inspected, and I suspect the condition of the tyres might have played a role too.

BA have zero control over the airfield and runways at LHR, they could just as easily have run over a piece of debris and not been at fault.

Virtual737 wrote:

Let's just remember the era that Concorde was designed and built in. No car totally based on 1960's technology would get anywhere near approval for new sale today (or even 30 years ago) in the West.

Without pushing close to the edge we, as a species, would never achieve anything.

Spot-on mate! People can deride Concorde all they like, but it was one hell of an achievement. They were pushing
the boundaries of design for sure, but that was the brief & the engineers delivered. It had a great safety record, &
I had no qualms in flying it twice, never gave it a thought infact. The AF incident was very unfortunate, but putting
that aside, the reliability issues it may have had were probably no worse than supposedly better built aircraft today.
The speed differential & all that brought with it would exaccerbate any problems manys times. For its performance
& the amount of people it transported safely at such a ridiculous speed, the plane, it`s engineers, & just the idea
of "giving it a go" we should all commend......a real highlight of aviation IMHO.

ikramerica wrote:

A blown tire leading to a catastrophic explosion is a design flaw.

That's oversimplifying the chain of events that come with every accident. And not necessarily true, by the way.

uta999 wrote:

This accident would not have happened at LHR, or to BA. The aircraft was overweight, the runway was not inspected, and I suspect the condition of the tyres might have played a role too.

Because....Britain will prevail? Accidents happen, even in England.

It was a piece falling off an ancient CO DC 10 that caused the Concorde disaster...just a reality check for this dangerous bird.

The reality is, prior to 9/11, airlines were flying a lot of old aircraft around by today's standards. It was a different time.

LAXLHR wrote:

There is a great SSC doco out there "Concorde Around the World" charter worth watching, and take note, a mechanic flew with the plane around the world since it was visiting destinations that were not part of regular SSC ops, like YVR, HNL, SYD, NBO etc. What other aircraft can you think of that needs that sort of backup muscle?...lol. Obviously it made sense on a few levels since it was an expensive charter package, but still.

Sounds very commonplace even today, nothing unusual about that at all. Obviously there would have been very few if any qualified Concorde mechanics outside of Paris, London and the handful of east coast US destiantions that formed Concordes world.

To this day BA carries additional engineers on a number of services to provide support for issues which may arise at certain outstations where maintenance support may be unavailable. For example two engineers based in NAS will fly to GCM and back to offer ground support there. BA flew engineers down and back on the Freetown when that was a route and I’m pretty sure they still form part of the crew out to IKA everyday too!

ikramerica wrote:

A blown tire leading to a catastrophic explosion is a design flaw.

sometimes all holes align. probability is what counts.

Look at exploding tankage on 747

May I ask another question:

Why aren't we capable to desing, build and fly a supersonic airliner?
We do have more technology, more innovative materials, state of the art engineers.
Is it like that internet joke, "my phone has thousand times the computing power the Apollo lunar capsule had" "but I don't see any freakin' phone flying to the Moon"?
Is there no will to do it?

WIederling wrote:

ikramerica wrote:

A blown tire leading to a catastrophic explosion is a design flaw.

sometimes all holes align. probability is what counts.

Look at exploding tankage on 747

Frankly speaking, nobody can tell what would operation history be if Concorde had 1500-strong fleet like 747 had, not 100 times smaller one. Statistics needs a big sample size...

FatCat wrote:

May I ask another question:

Why aren't we capable to desing, build and fly a supersonic airliner?
We do have more technology, more innovative materials, state of the art engineers.
Is it like that internet joke, "my phone has thousand times the computing power the Apollo lunar capsule had" "but I don't see any freakin' phone flying to the Moon"?
Is there no will to do it?

Modern engineering can certainly design, build and fly a supersonic airliner.
Modern society can NOT pay for that, though. Besides effects of such airliner will be unacceptable for modern society.
If money and side effects were not an issue - F-35 program is an example of what is doable.

aeropix wrote:

I remember there was a handful of Concorde in the late '90s losing part of the rudder during supersonic flight. This came about at the time of rising concern over aging aircraft problems. Perhaps there are other small anomalies that the mechanics knew to "watch out for" that were never noticed in the wider aviation world.

Yes and weren't these issues related to an overall lack of knowledge at the time of carbon fibre technology in aircraft design ?

FatCat wrote:

May I ask another question:

Why aren't we capable to desing, build and fly a supersonic airliner?
We do have more technology, more innovative materials, state of the art engineers.
Is it like that internet joke, "my phone has thousand times the computing power the Apollo lunar capsule had" "but I don't see any freakin' phone flying to the Moon"?
Is there no will to do it?

HUGE fundamental issues preventing such an aircraft are..
A) Majority of paying passengers shopping around for a ticket that's $2 cheaper than the next (pitch one that's 500% more and good luck! - plus no, I don't think a business-only model would ever work)
B) Noise regs - even subsonic, the types of low-bypass / high-thrust velocity engines required for supersonic flight are LOUD at takeoff and subsonic flight - plus yes, you have the boom issue. Every second the aircraft spends at subsonic flight in the pattern with modern airliners it's consuming exponentially more fuel, and cost/hr maintenance is exponentially higher as well.
C) If they couldn't justify the costs back then, they surely can't do it with today's fuel prices and fuel market stability issues.
D) Even if a couple airlines wanted a couple aircraft, it takes HUNDREDS of sales to justify design and production of a modern aircraft. Knowing that they'd only sell a handful of planes, what company on earth would touch such a project? HEAVY govt subsidies, and idealistic "space age" mind set of the general population back then, ALL planes being very loud, and not much concern for the environment, etc plus the pride of the Euro countries involved were the only reason Concorde ever flew.

It's all sad, but I'm just staying some observations.

And yes, for the OP's state, it's my personal opinion that the aircraft was MUCH closer to and number of catastrophic failures during a given flight than any conventional airliner (note I said conventional, not modern).

That regime of flight is just inherently dangerous. It's automatically MORE dangerous because you're dealing with all of the standard aviation concerns plus an exotic design/aircraft. The wing config and low-speed flight characteristics and approach speeds make things more risky, the clustered engines (themselves, of a less-reliable type and design than a conventional podded high-bypass of the day) are far more "inherently" risky. I mean one could make a list a mile long - even something as seemingly benign as the tire loading, pressures, and speeds which were vastly different than a conventional aircraft ended up leading to disaster.

Luckily nothing catastrophic ended up happening at supersonic speeds, but it really wouldn't have taken much IMHO.

Yeah many would argue that it had a decent safety record "for what it was" - but I don't really agree, especially when you throw in a few near-disasters which themselves were attributed to Concorde-unique systems. On a purely per-flight-hour basis, it wasn't a very safe plane at all (there just weren't that many of them, and they didn't fly THAT long).

Don't get me wrong, it's a marvel of engineering and a beautiful plane - but I'm just trying to stay on topic here.

FatCat wrote:

Why aren't we capable to desing, build and fly a supersonic airliner? Is there no will to do it?

There are companies actively developing commercial supersonic transports, though they are smaller than Concorde.

Boom Technology is working on a 55-person Mach 2.2 SST and it has 76 commitments from five airlines, including Japan Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic. Of course, Concorde had commitments from multiple airlines, as well, but in the end only BA and AF took them (and then in no small part because they were the national airlines of the two countries that built it).

Aerion is developing the Mach 1.5 AS2 business jet with support from Lockheed-Martin and Airbus. Flexjet has 20 on firm order.

Arion640 wrote:

It also had a second crash If you've ever watched the awful movie airport 79.

Not really, since it was the same exact airframe, F-BTSC.

And that movie is one of my favorites, thank you very much!

skipness1E wrote:

The Concorde, Comet and the VC10 couldn't be built today with the engines slap bang next to each other.
Likewise the B747 couldn't be built to carry passengers forward of Door 1 if it was designed today, as there's only one way out and that's backwards from the nose.

Why?
Your argument makes no sense. What is the basis of this statement?

tonystan wrote:

LAXLHR wrote:

There is a great SSC doco out there "Concorde Around the World" charter worth watching, and take note, a mechanic flew with the plane around the world since it was visiting destinations that were not part of regular SSC ops, like YVR, HNL, SYD, NBO etc. What other aircraft can you think of that needs that sort of backup muscle?...lol. Obviously it made sense on a few levels since it was an expensive charter package, but still.

Sounds very commonplace even today, nothing unusual about that at all. Obviously there would have been very few if any qualified Concorde mechanics outside of Paris, London and the handful of east coast US destiantions that formed Concordes world.

To this day BA carries additional engineers on a number of services to provide support for issues which may arise at certain outstations where maintenance support may be unavailable. For example two engineers based in NAS will fly to GCM and back to offer ground support there. BA flew engineers down and back on the Freetown when that was a route and I’m pretty sure they still form part of the crew out to IKA everyday too!

Hi:

Flying Mechanic it is very common issue, For instance, is aircraft is N-registered and should go to any other coutry’s airport were there is not a own based mechanic You must carry a mechanic, to give mx AND TO SIGN Log Book, to made a/c LEGAL TO FLY AGAIN.

For that, they are payed their normally salary and a non taxable “perdiem”, still is a hard work, may be around 24 hrs +/-, depend where plane go..

Back to theme, knowing French, it make no sense to me. If they knew any plane have a very small deficiency, would ground it, till be sure a/c will be back to airworthiness. May be they have bad press, but are very professionals. KUDOS to them

Rgds

RetiredNWA wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

The Concorde, Comet and the VC10 couldn't be built today with the engines slap bang next to each other.
Likewise the B747 couldn't be built to carry passengers forward of Door 1 if it was designed today, as there's only one way out and that's backwards from the nose.

Why?
Your argument makes no sense. What is the basis of this statement?

engines side by side:
one engine can take out the neighboring engine too. single fault double failure. NOGO.
747 nose seating:
pax seating with only one egress path is not accepted for new designs ( see A380 ). NOGO.

estorilm wrote:

A) Majority of paying passengers shopping around for a ticket that's $2 cheaper than the next (pitch one that's 500% more and good luck! - plus no, I don't think a business-only model would ever work)

Yes, there are certainly many travelers who look for the lowest price, or perhaps I should say that there are many people who will travel if the fares are low enough. Ryanair and EasyJet would be two examples.

On the other hand the difference between economy and first class is infinitely greater today, and the fares more than reflect that. The 1% are paying for higher and higher differentiation. So I tend to think that if Concorde was flying today it would have no trouble finding passengers.

This is also the reason why the current thoughts about supersonic passenger aircraft appear to be business jet size.

As soon as it wasn’t made in the USA or operated by a US airline it was going to be destroyed at some stage unfortunately

skipness1E wrote:

The Concorde, Comet and the VC10 couldn't be built today with the engines slap bang next to each other.
Likewise the B747 couldn't be built to carry passengers forward of Door 1 if it was designed today, as there's only one way out and that's backwards from the nose.

RetiredNWA wrote:

Why? Your argument makes no sense. What is the basis of this statement?

Current airframe certification standards no longer allow a new design to have it's engines side-by side nor do they allow for only one exit path for passengers (as is the case of the nose section of the 747 family).*

* - The 747-8 is grandfathered under the regulations of the time that did allow a single exit path.

Concorde was bound for disaster in Airport '79...

Stitch wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

Likewise the B747 couldn't be built to carry passengers forward of Door 1 if it was designed today, as there's only one way out and that's backwards from the nose.

RetiredNWA wrote:

Why? Your argument makes no sense. What is the basis of this statement?

...
* - The 747-8 is grandfathered under the regulations of the time that did allow a single exit path.

It's also the reason the B737 is still soldiering on and attracting all the ire it does for Boeing being "stuck in the past" and "no longer innovative" - so many aspects of its design would not be certifiable today but are still permitted so long as it stays within a certain measure of the original type certificate.

FatCat wrote:

May I ask another question:

Why aren't we capable to desing, build and fly a supersonic airliner?
We do have more technology, more innovative materials, state of the art engineers.
Is it like that internet joke, "my phone has thousand times the computing power the Apollo lunar capsule had" "but I don't see any freakin' phone flying to the Moon"?
Is there no will to do it?

It's very expensive.
As we've added hours to the pre-departure (security) and post-departure (long bag wait times), the value of shaving a few hours off the flight time is reduced.
If it makes economic sense then it will happen at that point.

kalvado wrote:

Statistics needs a big sample size...

No.
Sample size ( absolute, relative ) is a well understood thing.

Flight hours vs hull losses is a useful metric.
Number of frames less so.
( Concorde had one batch manufacture and flying for umpteen years.
747 had continuous production and retirement. )

Addendum: and you probably have to compare its safety to contemporary designs.

WIederling wrote:

kalvado wrote:

Statistics needs a big sample size...

No.
Sample size ( absolute, relative ) is a well understood thing.

Flight hours vs hull losses is a useful metric.
Number of frames less so.
( Concorde had one batch manufacture and flying for umpteen years.
747 had continuous production and retirement. )

Addendum: and you probably have to compare its safety to contemporary designs.

As far as I remember, as of right now safety of western airlines is 1 crash per several million flights (4 million I saw it last time, but ithere is a huge error margin). Concorde was designed for 24k cycles * total 20 frames= total of 0.5 million cycles at most, probably actual i less than that. There is no way to tell how that single crash was a one-off event or actually represents crash rate expected for larger sample. The sample size we have is just too small.

Stitch wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

The Concorde, Comet and the VC10 couldn't be built today with the engines slap bang next to each other.
Likewise the B747 couldn't be built to carry passengers forward of Door 1 if it was designed today, as there's only one way out and that's backwards from the nose.

RetiredNWA wrote:

Why? Your argument makes no sense. What is the basis of this statement?

Current airframe certification standards no longer allow a new design to have it's engines side-by side nor do they allow for only one exit path for passengers (as is the case of the nose section of the 747 family).*

* - The 747-8 is grandfathered under the regulations of the time that did allow a single exit path.

It's not so much a single path (though that's very much what ends up happening) as it is distance from exits.

The regulation is that pax can't be positioned more than 60ft laterally from an exit, assuming an aisle blockage either before or after them.
Block the aisle at L1, and those-in-the-nose are now more than 60ft from an exit on the same side.

kalvado wrote:

WIederling wrote:

kalvado wrote:

Statistics needs a big sample size...

No.
Sample size ( absolute, relative ) is a well understood thing.

Flight hours vs hull losses is a useful metric.
Number of frames less so.
( Concorde had one batch manufacture and flying for umpteen years.
747 had continuous production and retirement. )

Addendum: and you probably have to compare its safety to contemporary designs.

As far as I remember, as of right now safety of western airlines is 1 crash per several million flights (4 million I saw it last time, but ithere is a huge error margin). Concorde was designed for 24k cycles * total 20 frames= total of 0.5 million cycles at most, probably actual i less than that. There is no way to tell how that single crash was a one-off event or actually represents crash rate expected for larger sample. The sample size we have is just too small.

Exactly! We just don't have enough information... it seems as if supersonic flying must be rocket science, we may never perfect it, especially like the TU144, which was a failure and definitely deadly.. surprised that it never went through that many cycles, BA and AF mustn't have flown it as often as their other aircraft, what was the turn around time on a concorde, must have been long if it had that small of a sample of cycles?

EA CO AS wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

It also had a second crash If you've ever watched the awful movie airport 79.

Not really, since it was the same exact airframe, F-BTSC.

And that movie is one of my favorites, thank you very much!

Couldn’t agree more.



Great poster KJ !

I think there was always a higher risk of disastrous failure with the Concorde due to its intended purpose to operate at supersonic speed and not fully understanding possible risks including serious flaws that led in part to the timing of its demise. But let us not forget other aircraft created at the time has major failures. The best example are the early series DC-10's with bad cargo loading door latch design, insufficient hydraulics redundancies and protections that led to several losses and 100's killed.

Max Q wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

It also had a second crash If you've ever watched the awful movie airport 79.

Not really, since it was the same exact airframe, F-BTSC.

And that movie is one of my favorites, thank you very much!

Couldn’t agree more.



Great poster KJ !

It's not that bad of a film by 70's standards. But what gets it for me is when George Kennedy open the cockpit window and shoots a gun while flying along.....

Great actor though.

Arion640 wrote:

It's not that bad of a film by 70's standards. But what gets it for me is when George Kennedy open the cockpit window and shoots a gun while flying along.....

Great actor though.

When your plane doesn't come equipped with countermeasures, you improvise! I just want to know how Patroni went from a line mechanic to left seat on a Concorde in under a decade!

skipness1E wrote:

The Concorde, Comet and the VC10 couldn't be built today with the engines slap bang next to each other.
Likewise the B747 couldn't be built to carry passengers forward of Door 1 if it was designed today, as there's only one way out and that's backwards from the nose.

I didn’t know the 747 wouldn’t get certified today as a new design, learn something new every day

Bound for disaster, not necessarily, but there were concerns about some aspects of Concorde's design even before it flew. As the aircraft grew in size and payload during the development process, the wing area failed to keep pace and wing loading and takeoff speed increased accordingly. Growing the wing area would have triggered further weight increases, requiring more thrust than the Olympus 593 could generate without a significant redesign.

As Lockheed's SST director Bill Magruder put it in 1966: "They just ran the wing area down and the weight they saved went directly into payload. They got a smaller boom, and they got a 26,000- to 28,000-pound payload, but they also got a liftoff speed of 205-210 knots."

The following year, FAA director of Supersonic Transport Development Jewell Maxwell noted that a delta wing operating on the back side of the drag curve gives little margin for error: "The very nature of a delta is a low-aspect-ratio wing, and it has very poor L/D at low speeds. As a consequence you have to have a lot of power... Have you ever been in a plane with a 210-knot liftoff speed? I dunno, I sit on the sideline and wonder." Granted, these were not objective sources by any means, but the trade-offs of the tailless and thus flapless delta wing were obvious.

Concorde's paired engine nacelles also increased the chance of multiple engine loss, either from contagious effects like uncontained failure or fire, or from debris ingestion that would affect both engines simultaneously. Boeing and Lockheed both opted for separate nacelles. The prototype TU-144's paired nacelles were mounted very close together, which received widespread criticism at the time, before being moved somewhat outboard on the production version.

In addition, Boeing pointed out that the flaps on the swing-wing 2707 would help deflect spray and debris coming off the landing gear, with the inboard and outboard engines receiving clean airflow from over the fixed and moving wing flaps, respectively. As far as I know, Concorde and the TU-144 were unique in having an unobstructed path from the main gear to the engine intakes; the VC-10, BAC-111, 727, DC-9, and other contemporary aircraft with tail-mounted engines all featured nearly full-span trailing edge flaps.





The point of all this is that a) Concorde's very high takeoff speeds were the cause of some concern in the community; b) paired engine nacelles obviously increase the risk of multiple engine failure; and c) FOD ingestion was a serious issue for aft/ventral engine mounts. All three factors were critical in the Paris crash, but they were known weaknesses from the outset.

Thus, it's extremely unfortunate that the Dulles incident in 1979, which was merely the most critical in a series of tire bursts, did not result in more substantial design changes. The aircraft very easily could have been lost if the debris had taken a slightly different path.