Blown Tire May Be Behind Concorde Engine Fire

A tire blew out as the doomed Air France Concorde roared down the runway, France’s Transport Ministry said Friday, leading to speculation that debris from the blowout might have triggered a fire in one of the plane’s engines.

The ministry statement was the first time a tire blowout has been confirmed, and investigators were trying to determine what role if any it played in sending the luxury jet plunging into a hotel in the town of Gonesse minutes after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport.

On Friday, another body was found in the charred rubble of the Hotelissimo, bringing the death toll to 114.

Most of the 100 passengers were German tourists en route to a Caribbean cruise. Nine Air France crew members and five people in the hotel also died.

Blown-out tires have been blamed for past brushes with near-disaster, despite Concorde’s seemingly spotless safety record.

In 1981, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported four “potentially catastrophic” incidents resulting from blown-out tires during Concorde takeoffs between June 1979 and February 1981.

The most serious occurred in June 1979 at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

As a Concorde was taking off, two tires on the main left landing gear blew out, and tire debris and wheel shrapnel damaged the No. 2 engine and punctured three fuel tanks. A large hole was torn in the wing.

The plane immediately returned to the airport. Design modifications were made after the incident.

A preliminary report on Tuesday’s Paris crash is due to be released at the end of August, but just three days after the tragedy, a sketchy picture of the sequence of events has emerged.

“At least one tire exploded, which could have triggered a chain of events, structural damage, a fire and an engine breakdown,” the Transport Ministry said.

An initial Transport Ministry report issued Thursday said tire debris was found strewn along the runway where the Concorde took off.

Meanwhile, friends and colleagues of the nine crew members who died in the crash attended a memorial service Friday at Air France headquarters at Charles de Gaulle Airport.