Part of tail lost from Concorde

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 1

Part of tail lost from Concorde

By

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor, in Sydney

The Concorde lost a large chunk of its tail 25 minutes after leaving Christchurch yesterday. The British Airways supersonic aircraft was travelling at twice the speed of sound, about 50,000 ft above the Tasman, when the incident occurred.

No-one was hurt and the aircraft landed safely with emergency services standing by at Sydney’s international airport 50 minutes later. However, the rudder on the tail was badly damaged and had a piece about 3m by 2m torn from its mounting. The Concorde,- which was on a round-the-world charter, is likely to remain crippled at Sydney for at least a week. A loud "whump,” followed immediately by a jolt, was our first indication that anything was amiss. We were about 250 miles west of Hokitika, at the time, travelling about 2200km/h or 37km a minute. The jolt lasted only a second or two, but was strong enough to cause concern among passengers. “That hasn’t happened before,” said the person sitting in front of me. It was for him, the seventh leg of a luxury trip that started in New York 12 days ago. I braced myself for possible depressurisation and a sudden steep descent to a lower altitude, but the flight continued at the same speed, 10 miles above the Tasman. The electronic displays at the front of the cabin indicated it was -63 deg outside. Everything seemed to be normal, apart from a slight vibration which I did not recall experiencing when I last flew by Concorde across the Atlantic six years ago. Most of us continued with lunch. Someone cracked a joke about bags- falling out of the cargo hold; someone else suggested we had struck a pot-hole. But it was not until the aircraft was descending towards Sydney that we were to learn something was seriously wrong. Without warning, the aircraft started vibrating so badly that some of the interior panels above the seats were shaken loose. This occurred as we were descending through 30,000 ft at a speed of Mach 1, about 1086km/h.

Passengers were asked to return to their seats and fasten seatbelts as the vibration appeared to worsen. “There’s a priest sitting behind us,” said Mrs Sheila Cole Nilva, president of a New York company, who was sitting next to me. “Wonder what he is thinking and doing right now?” "Hopefully working,” I replied. Passengers showed no sign of panic, but some clearly were concerned. Most of us were pretty certain that the vibration was linked with the thump we had felt 35 minutes earlier. Captain David Leney then made an announcement, apologising for the vibration — which then stopped while he was speaking. "We think it’s possibly a loose panel on the airframe of the aeroplane,” he said.

“We have no other indications up here (on the flightdeck) so there’s nothing to concern yourselves about,” he said in a cool, reassuring voice. By now we were down to about 12,000 ft and our speed was back to 500km/h. From my small leftside window I could see the coast of New South Wales to the south of Sydney. Mrs Nilva produced a bar of chocolate and offered me a piece. "I only eat this stuff when I’m nervous,” she admitted. Captain Leney made a direct approach to the airport from the south and we touched down exactly Ihr 24min after taking off from Christchurch. Passengers applauded as the Concorde came to a stop and taxied slowly towards the terminal. Three fire tenders escorted us and we realised something was visibly amiss. Passengers were kept on board for 30 minutes before being allowed to disembark. “My God, part of the tail is missing — look!” called one of the passengers as we walked across the tarmqfc. Others stopped to take photographs of the gaping space at the top rear of the rudder before they were hustlpd inside by security officers. Mr Donald Pevsner, director of Concorde projects, said later that he was sitting on the jump seat behind the captain when the incident occurred. He said the crew were unaware of the extent of the damage as the aircraft seemed to respond normally to all controls. The crew were surprised by the size of the chunk missing from the rudder — a vital part of any aircraft. Mr Pevsner said he did not know how long the Concorde would remain crippled in Sydney, but it is unlikely to be repaired in time for the $65,000 a seat charter to continue on to Perth and Sri Lanka this week-end.