mechanic found guilty

I’m not going to weigh in on this verdict, because I know nothing about the evidence. I just find it to be a remarkable story that they’ve not only determined that Continental Airlines was responsible for the AirFrance Concorde crash (due to a titanium strip falling from the Continental plane and I guess cutting the tire of the Concorde) but that they were able to trace the disaster to THE INCOMPETENCE OF A SPECIFIC CONTINENTAL MECHANIC.

It sounds like this one is taking on nationalistic USA/France overtones to some extent. That does seem to happen in the case of air disasters. For example, I’ve never yet met an Egyptian, of any religion, who really believes that the EgyptAir crash in the ocean off New York in 1999 was the result of suicidal actions by the co-pilot. The focus in Egypt is all on Western hysteria about the Islamic prayer uttered by the co-pilot before the crash. In the USA there is indeed some talk about that prayer, but technical evidence from the flight recorders is also presented. Nonetheless, the rift in public opinion between the two countries seems unbridgeable. Remarkable how that can happen, and interesting that air disasters (much like wars) seem to be such a regular source of “consensus gap.”