Concorde - Thorium contamination?

[P van Rooyen <rooyen@aib-vincotte.nl>]

When a 747 crashed in A'dam there was a lot of 'hassle' about the depleted
uranium counter weights.
This looks like a similar case only this time it is the thorium in the
engines.

This press realeas is at:
http://www.dawn.com/2000/08/11/int14.htm

=================================================
Metal strip caused Concorde crash: agency 


 PARIS, Aug 10: A 40-centimetre strip of metal found on the runway taken by
the Air France
 Concorde that crashed on July 25 was probably the cause of the aircraft's
burst tyre, the French
 Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) said on Thursday. 

It is likely that the strip "is what caused the split in the tyre," the BEA
said in a statement. 
Pieces of tyre were found on the runway at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport
following the
 Concorde's crash just after take off. The disaster killed 113 people. 

 Investigators believe pieces of the split tyre could have pierced a fuel
tank on the doomed aircraft or
 damaged one of its engines. 

 The BEA statement did not wholly resolve the question of the cause of the
crash, however, as the
 reasons why one engine failed and another was faulty remained unclear. 

 Captain Xavier Mulot, heading the inquiry by France's air transport
police, told a press conference
 later on Thursday that around 20 objects had been found on and around the
runway following the
 accident and that between 500 and 1,000 pieces of evidence were being
examined in the inquiry. 

 "I cannot say today if the metal strip found on the runway was part of the
Concorde or not," he said,
 although the BEA said last week the metal strip did not come from the
crashed plane. 

 Earlier on Thursday, environmental protection agency Robin Hood warned
that investigators, experts
 and witnesses at the crash site could have been exposed to radioactivity. 

 The agency pointed out, in a statement, that Concordes were designed using
military technology at a
 time when alloys of the radioactive element thorium were used in fighter
plane jet engines to counter
 heat constraints. 

 High levels of radioactivity were detected on the wreck of a Mirage F1
fighter plane which crashed in
 1994.-AFP


=============================================



Paul van Rooijen
Manager HSE
AIB-Vinçotte Nederland BV
Postbus 6869
4802 HW Breda
The Netherlands

tel	++31 (0) 76 579 11 54
fax	++31 (0) 76 587 47 60 
e-mail	rooyen@aib-vincotte.nl



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