Concorde slams into Chirac’s plane

New Deal Democrat

The crash of Air France flight 4590 was the death kneel of the Concorde and the 9/11 attacks a year later were the nail in the coffin. As horrific as the crash was it shockingly could’ve been much worse.
To briefly quote the always excellent Admiral Cloudberg https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com...-crash-of-air-france-flight-4590-84c8a9e6c74a

…Just ahead of Concorde, stopped on a taxiway off the left side of runway 26R, was a fully loaded Boeing 747 containing French President Jacques Chirac, who had just returned from a trip to Japan.

As the crippled Concorde veered toward the 747, First Officer Marcot shouted, “Watch out!”

Captain Marty, knowing that the plane would not become airborne and would likely strike the 747 if it went into the grass, jammed the rudder hard to the right and raised the nose for liftoff.
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from there it briefly “flew” before crashing into a hotel, killing all onboard and several on the ground. So, what in the world happens if instead of getting airborne it instead hits the 747?

I tend to think you would get the same result as OTL, however there might be some scapegoating of the plane’s crew but ultimately the expense and 9/11 would kill the program as OTL.
 

sparky42

The impact to the Concorde program would surely be minor compared to the impact of a French President being killed. Who would have been the likely replacement, and what policies both domestic and foreign might they have taken?
 

USS_Ward

sparky42 said:
The impact to the Concorde program would surely be minor compared to the impact of a French President being killed. Who would have been the likely replacement, and what policies both domestic and foreign might they have taken?
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The next person in the line of succession would have been the french PM Lionel Jospin
 
Resurgam

Resurgam

sparky42 said:
Intrepid, though I also so one of the Concorde prototypes in Duxford before the crash.
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Ah.

Yeah, the Intrepid was by far the best of my jobs in New York. I owe a lot to my former boss who's basically my best friend today (we SMS every week).


Anyway, back on topic... it'd be a hell of a footnote for Concorde but I don't see it doing anything worse to the reputation.
 
Resurgam

Resurgam

theg*ddam*hoi2fan said:
Nice. The Fleet Air Arm museum in Yeovil also had one - amazing plane...
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I spent two years talking about Concorde. And I'm actually looking at a COBI model of it from across the room (the airframe at Brooklands).

The plane has a draw. I still remember people coming into the museum asking what the tour was, I said "well, you go on board" and they practically threw money at me.
 

sparky42

USS_Ward said:
The next person in the line of succession would have been the french PM Lionel Jospin
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His 2002 campaign has some interesting bits just looking at his Wiki:
Jospin was a candidate in the presidential campaign of 2002. While he appeared to have momentum in the early stages, the campaign came to be focused mainly on law-and-order issues, in which, it was argued, the government had not achieved convincing results; this coincided with a strong media focus on a number of egregious crime cases. The far left also strongly criticized Jospin for his moderate economic policies, which they contended were not markedly different from that of right-wing governments favoring businesses and free markets. Jospin's 2002 presidential manifesto was nevertheless a strongly progressive one, calling for access to housing to be made a universal right, supporting employee representation on the supervisory boards of companies, and advocating better provisions for older people and the disabled.[32] As noted by one observer, Jospin's manifesto sought to balance its emphasis on ‘inequalities in income’ with ‘equality of opportunity,’ eliminating poverty with special regard to housing whilst promoting social investment through (particularly) education.[33]

Many left-wing candidates contested the election, gaining small percentages of the vote in the first ballot that reduced Jospin's support. As a result, Jospin finished in third place, behind Chirac and narrowly behind the Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. He thus was not a candidate in the second round of voting.[34]
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Wonder how much of that he might have enacted if he was elected and what the impact it would have on France? Would he have taken a different position on invading Iraq in '03 or not is another question?
 
Simon

Simon

sparky42 said:
Wonder how much of that he might have enacted if he was elected and what the impact it would have on France?
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Looking at the results of the 1997 legislative election and the composition of the resulting National Assembly that could be complex. The PS have a plurality with 255 seats but short of the 289 need for a majority, the RPR and the UDF have 139 and 112 respectively and I can't see much cooperation coming from them. The PCF have 35 seats which means if both parties get all their députés in line together it's a majority, but the PCF were critical of Jospin as being insufficiently leftist and might not want to associate themselves with him or his policies with an election potentially in the offing.
 

Dunois

USS_Ward said:
The next person in the line of succession would have been the french PM Lionel Jospin
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Nope, this is not how French politics work!
The next in line would have been the President of the Senate which would have been an interim President. New Presidential elections would then be organised within 35 days.

All of this is covered by Article 7 of the French Constitution.
 
Mad Bad Rabbit

Mad Bad Rabbit

Dunois said:
Nope, this is not how French politics work!
The next in line would have been the President of the Senate which would have been an interim President. New Presidential elections would then be organised within 35 days.
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So Christian Poncelet as interim: followed by a snap election between Jospin and Le Pen? :/
 
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