Why did the concorde go?

Question

Why did it go? I would like them to come back!

Answer 1

Sophie, they made a serious effort to fix the problems with the vulnerable fuel tanks that caused the awful in-flight fire and crash. The tires were close to the tanks and damaged, apparently, by a piece of metal from another airline's plane which had just taken off (this resulted in a big lawsuit).

The Concorde did fly again for a short while, but I guess a combination of the airline industry weakness (losing money) after 9/11 and the Concorde's aging made it no longer worth the effort and expense to keep it flying.

I don't think we'll see them fly again, but from time to time new supersonic designs are proposed. Lately it's seemed more likely that the next supersonic passenger plane may be a business jet, rather than an airliner.

Answer 2

The given reason for revoking the Concorde fleet's air-worthiness certificate, was the crash on July 25th, 2000.

A titanium metal strip had fallen off a DC-10, and a Concorde struck the metal on take-off. This resulted in the tyres bursting and the debris punctured the fuel tanks, causing the plane to crash. The tragedy killed 113 people.

This type of incident can (and does) happen to all makes and models of aircraft. So why not ground every aircraft that is involved in a similar crash? I've never understood the bizarre logic behind grounding Concorde due to one incident, caused by another 'plane..

Answer 3

its too expensive to operate and to maintain. the Concorde is an old aircraft more than 30 yrs old. a round trip from London to New York's JFK is around $10,000 USD. Fuel prices was getting too high. But one of the remaining Concorde is in New York City. Currently the Concorde is in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York while the U.S.S. Intrepid is at the dry docks.

Answer 4

The Concorde, was a fast SST aircraft. It was built as a consortium between the brits and the french. Their governments were subsidizing these birds. Not many were sold not many were made in the first place. I think they only could hold 144 passengers. You could go from Paris to New York in 3 hours. Expensive to maintain. Expensive to fly. If the bird had had more seats it could have been a different story. It was also getting old.

Answer 5

although Concorde was the most beautiful aircraft ever produced the development costs meant that when it finally came into production, the cost of each aircraft was prohibitive and sales could only be made by massive govt subsidies. Then the USA Govt because they were so far behind with the technology due to them concentrating on moving large numbers of passengers rather than speed, boycotted the aircraft for several years, thus making it even less viable. BAC which built Concorde, shot themselves in the foot by sending a prototype on a round the world promotion tour. The prototype was far noisier than the final production model and this not only assisted the US lobbyists in getting it banned but made all other countries take the view that they did not want this noisy bird flying over their country.

Eventually, the US allowed it in but it's flight path was restricted to sea only This restricted it's use substantially because the only countries you can fly to from UK and France without crossing over land is the eastern seaboard of US and South America.

It's final demise was the Paris Aircrash which ironically was caused by a strip of metal falling from a US airline which got picked up by the tyres and tossed into one of the engines which then exploded. Being an accident on take off the chances of a recovery were slim and everybody died. The aircraft was grounded for 2 years whilst modifications were made but British Airways and Air France decided that enough was enough. Concorde never made any money for it's owners.

The directors of BA would not sell their's to Richard Branson because they hate each other. They would rather stick needles in their eyes. There is only one Concorde left intact in the UK. It flys occasionally and is parked at the side of Airports for sightseers but you have to book in advance.

I flew to new Zealand recently and I mused on the thought that had I been flying Concorde the journey would have taken 12 hours instead of 26 hrs.

Sadly missed over the skies of London.

Answer 6

Low selling of tickets to go to the Concorde after 9/11.

Answer 7

The demise of the Concorde was inevitable as the coming demise of worlwide motorsports...

When factoring in the equation of global warming CO2 emissions any fuel guzzling enterprise is subject to the chopping block...

The Concorde concept was actually the epitome of catering to the "disgustingly rich" at the expense of the planet and environment.

Be happy that humanity is coming to its senses! It is not over yet.

Does this help any?

Time for 6 billion to "think green" and only green.. there is no other way.

Answer 8

It stopped being the fastest way overall of getting from point A to B, and staying alive, for those who could afford to fly it.
There are people trying to replace it with something better, but haven't done it yet.
The average millionaire probably would rather spend 12 extra hours and stay alive, than $12000 and have a far greater risk of not arriving at all.

Answer 9

It was taken out of service because:-

Its range was limited

Its payload was to small

Its fuel consumption was un-real

Is green foot print was black

The noise it generated at take of was to LOUD

It could not go supersonic over land as the boom disturbed all in its path

As for the original Concorde's returning to flight status Bob Hope has more hope!

Answer 10

Uncle Al above was the closest. The same factors made it not cost effective to further develop the concept and the existing aircraft eventually wore out/became expensive to maintain. The lack of development resulted in the death of the SST, not Paris or any related events.