Article Posted on : - Jan 14, 2009

File photo of Concorde from wikipedia

PARIS (BNS): A French court will begin trial next month into the tragic Concorde crash in 2000 killing all 109 passengers aboard and four workers on the ground. The US-based Continental Airlines and two of its employees will defend charges of manslaughter along with the officials of the Concorde programme, agencies reported.

The crash was among the worst aircraft accidents in the world's aviation history. The incident drew curtains on Concorde, the first passenger supersonic aircraft considered to be one of the marvels of modern engineering. On July 25, 2000, Concorde crashed shortly after taking off from Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. It turned into a fireball seconds after rotating on its flight to New York.

Investigations completed in December 2004 concluded that a strip of metal that fell on the runway from a Continental Airline’s DC-10 aircraft just before Concorde’s departure might have caused the accident. The supersonic jet apparently ran over the metal titanium strip that pierced through one of its tyres resulting in fire and subsequent blowing up of the aircraft.

Continental Airlines has been charged with negligence and its failure to maintain the aircraft. Two of its employees responsible for the maintenance of DC-10 have been directly named in the petition. These are: John Taylor and chief of maintenance Stanley Ford. According to agencies, Taylor had fitted the sub-standard titanium strip on the aircraft that broke off on the runway and Stanley has been accused of negligence as the head of maintenance.

Apart from the Continental Airlines, officials of Concorde and French aviation bodies will also face trial for failing to detect and amend certain flaws in the supersonic jet. It was not the first incident of tyre burst on Concorde. Before the Charles De Gaulle accident, there were 67 incidents of tyre blowouts involving Concorde. In some cases, the damaged wheel had even broken into the fuel tanks.

Former chief of the Concorde programme at Aerospatiale, Henri Perrier and his colleague Jacques Herubel, an engineer, will face charges for their failure in detecting the flaw and setting it right.

Claude Frantzen, who handled the Concorde project for the French civil aviation authority, is also one of the accused.

The iconic aircraft was withdrawn from service a few years after the accident. A spokesperson for the Continental was quoted as saying that the airline was convinced that its employees were not the cause of the Concorde tragedy.