Concorde

CONCORDE will be under scrutiny over the next four months whilst a French court attempts to lay the blame for the July 2000 disaster, grounding the Air France version of the supersonic jet.  Five people are charged with involuntary manslaughter plus Continental Airlines.  Two Air France technical staff, a former French civil aviation official and two engineers from Continental will be closely scrutinised under French law.  Prosecutors will argue that an 18-inch scrap of titanium on the runway caused the accident.  A Continental Airlines DC-10 shed the “wear strip” on the runway shortly before takeoff, shredding the Concorde’s tyre and splattering pieces of rubber into the fuel tanks, which caused a fire, and the catastrophe.  The US airline will argue there had been 65 incidents of burst tyres, six of which led to the perforation of fuel tanks and that it was an accident waiting to happen.  In the incident, which happened during Farnborough week, 113 died.  The final British Airways Concorde commercial flight took place on 24 October 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk

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