In the aftermath of the Concorde disaster on 25 July, a poignant feeling that more than mere lives had been lost heightened the outpouring of grief. All aircraft disasters are horrific, but after a half century of transatlantic commercial air travel, the occasional tragedy has lost its power to truly shock.
Aeroplanes fall to the earth from time to time.
The crash of the Concorde, however, has struck deeper than normal emotional empathy and rational concern. It has generated an odd sense of pathos with the machine itself. A beautiful dream was tragically shattered. That same day, French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot resolved that the dream would not be abandoned. The following day, Le Monde reminded its readers that the Franco-British alliance that created the Concorde in 1969 was the first manifest evidence of the potential greatness contained within the idea of a single Europe.