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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
Passengers tell of Concorde horror (From CNN) The 10-hour journey ended with a bus ride from Wales to London. LONDON, England (AP) -- They took off from New York on the world's fastest passenger jet and pulled into London's Heathrow Airport nearly half a day later -- on a bus. Things started to go really wrong on the $6,600-a-seat (£4,000) Concorde with a frightening backfire over the Atlantic Ocean. Before it was over, the plane had dropped from supersonic to subsonic speed, was running out of fuel and made an unscheduled landing in Wales. Even passengers who know the Concorde is about to be retired forever were shocked by the service. Like many people aboard Wednesday's British Airways Concorde flight, John Crelly and his companion, Mhairi Watson, were looking forward to some serious luxury on the world's only remaining supersonic civilian aircraft. "The whole point of the trip was to have a fantastic holiday followed by the experience of flying on Concorde," Crelly, a 39-year-old London businessman, said Thursday. But things got off to a bumpy start in New York. The departure from Kennedy Airport was delayed for an hour by a faulty light. Then, three-quarters of the way into the trans-Atlantic flight, the Concorde experienced an "engine surge," meaning the flow of air through one of its engines was disrupted, causing it to backfire. "There was a bang like we'd hit a brick wall, and then the pilot came on saying something like we'd lost an engine, but everything was tickety-boo," said Patricia Ayearst, a retired commercial artist from New York, speaking to journalists Thursday. Ayearst said the flight was her second on Concorde, which is to be retired permanently in October. "I traveled with them 20 years ago and everything went off perfectly. I thought that I'd take this flight because it was my last chance before they went out of service," she said. The plane, a favored method of trans-Atlantic travel for pop stars and business tycoons, was traveling at a supersonic speed of 1,300 mph (2,100 km/h) over the Atlantic Ocean when the engine problem occurred. The pilot immediately slowed the plane to subsonic speed. "Glass and plates were flying and people were screaming. It was very scary," said Danny Ferris, a passenger from San Francisco who was traveling on Concorde for the first time. "We suddenly just dropped. The air crew quickly packed everything up and told us the captain was very busy but would speak to us shortly. Finally he came on the line to tell us what had happened," Crelly said. The Concorde was forced to fly at subsonic speeds for the rest of the flight, but because that uses more fuel than supersonic speed, the plane had to land at Cardiff International airport in Wales. Passengers -- who had each paid at least $6,585 (£4,064) for the trip -- were asked to board a bus for the 110-mile (177 km) drive to Heathrow Airport. Engineers checked the Concorde after it landed in Cardiff. Concorde, which British Airways and Air France began flying commercially in 1976, can normally travel the 3,000 miles (4,800 km) between London and New York in just 3 hours 20 minutes, about half the time of a conventional airliner. Altogether, Wednesday's journey took nearly 10 hours. British Airways said the landing had not been an emergency, the safety of the 99 passengers and six crew members was never compromised and no one was injured. There also has been no change to other Concorde flights, the airline said. Steve Double, a British Airways spokesman, said the passengers would receive frequent flyer miles as compensation, but no refund. The airline's remaining Concorde flights are sold out, he said, so passengers will have to use their miles on subsonic flights. The Concorde's problems mushroomed three years ago. In July 2000, an Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground. Air France and British Airways, which created the airplane together, immediately grounded their fleets of Concordes but resumed service to New York in November 2001, after spending over $27.2 million (£16.8 million) on safety improvements. In April, Air France and British Airways announced their Concorde fleets would be permanently grounded. Air France ran its last flight in May, and British Airways plans to retire its Concordes at the end of October, prompting some passengers to buy tickets before the jet fades into history. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/eu....ap/index.html |
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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
Chanchao wrote:
Passengers -- who had each paid at least $6,585 (£4,064) for the trip -- were asked to board a bus for the 110-mile (177 km) drive to Heathrow Airport. I doubt they "each" paid "at least" paid $6585. |
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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 07:41:53 GMT, mrtravel wrote some
stuff about " Passengers tell of Concorde horror", to which I would like to add the following: Passengers -- who had each paid at least $6,585 (£4,064) for the trip -- were asked to board a bus for the 110-mile (177 km) drive to Heathrow Airport. I doubt they "each" paid "at least" paid $6585. Whatever... the morons nearly panicked! ;-) "It was like hitting a brick wall; some champaign glasses fell over. We just panicked." :P Somehow I feel Brit Airways will be caughing up more than some extra FF miles tho.. ;-) Cheers, Chanchao |
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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
Chanchao wrote in message . ..
[snip] Things started to go really wrong on the $6,600-a-seat (£4,000) Concorde with a frightening backfire over the Atlantic Ocean. Before it was over, the plane had dropped from supersonic to subsonic speed, was running out of fuel and made an unscheduled landing in Wales. [snip] I'm a bit dubious about this expression. Without more info, I'd suspect that they didn't want to run below fuel minimums and so landed at Wales. I'm dubious that they were in any danger of having to dead stick the thing in. Minimums probably state that they are supposed to have 45 minutes to an hour of fuel left when they land. |
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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
Chanchao wrote in message . ..
On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 07:41:53 GMT, mrtravel wrote some stuff about " Passengers tell of Concorde horror", to which I would like to add the following: Passengers -- who had each paid at least $6,585 (£4,064) for the trip -- were asked to board a bus for the 110-mile (177 km) drive to Heathrow Airport. I doubt they "each" paid "at least" paid $6585. Whatever... the morons nearly panicked! ;-) "It was like hitting a brick wall; some champaign glasses fell over. We just panicked." :P Somehow I feel Brit Airways will be caughing up more than some extra FF miles tho.. ;-) While BA probably doesn't legally owe them anything, it is certainly bad public relations to brush-off people who've specially planned for these last few historic flights with just FF miles. But, you never know; airlines are getting quite rigid these days with their tariff rules - even if this is a circumstance that has no chance of setting some costly precedent. |
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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
"me" wrote in message m... Chanchao wrote in message . .. [snip] Things started to go really wrong on the $6,600-a-seat (£4,000) Concorde with a frightening backfire over the Atlantic Ocean. Before it was over, the plane had dropped from supersonic to subsonic speed, was running out of fuel and made an unscheduled landing in Wales. [snip] I'm a bit dubious about this expression. Without more info, I'd suspect that they didn't want to run below fuel minimums and so landed at Wales. I'm dubious that they were in any danger of having to dead stick the thing in. Minimums probably state that they are supposed to have 45 minutes to an hour of fuel left when they land. If Concorde loses an engine, it has to descend and fly subsonic for the rest of the flight. It uses a lot more fuel flying subsonic than supersonic (it does, really!!) partly because of angle of attack but also because of the lower altitude and other factors, and therefore always has to divert whenever an engine needs to be shut down (unless it lost an engine close to its destination obviously). |
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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
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Passengers tell of Concorde horror
Chanchao wrote:
On 19 Sep 2003 10:40:22 -0700, (Robert Sawatsky) wrote some stuff about " Passengers tell of Concorde horror", to which I would like to add the following: While BA probably doesn't legally owe them anything, it is certainly bad public relations to brush-off people who've specially planned for these last few historic flights with just FF miles. Seems like it just made it all the more memorable. They could consider giving them T-shirts saying "I was in a Concorde incident and survived!" \It would have to specify which incident. |
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