The head of Air France, Mr Jean-Cyril Spinetta, watched in horror from his office window as one of his airline's Concordes exploded and crashed soon after taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. As the jet plunged into a hotel at nearby Gonasse, killing all 109 on board and four on the ground, Mr Pinetta may also have been witnessing the death of the world's first supersonic passenger plane. Speculation grew yesterday that the Concorde may be grounded for good as Air France cancelled all flights of the needle-nosed jet that was created in 1969, the year man first walked on the moon, and was a symbol of the 20th century's faith in technology. But British Airways remained determined to continue its Concorde service between London and New York, and yesterday's regular morning flight left Heathrow Airport as scheduled. And within hours of Tuesday's crash of Air France Flight 4590, former Concorde pilots and aviation experts were defending the jet, the preferred cross-Atlantic transport of the rich and famous, including the Queen.
Engine failure is suspected as the likely cause of the catastrophe.
An Air France spokesman said work had just been carried out on one of the airliner's engines. At this moment we absolutely cannot know if it had to do with the accident. Witnesses said the stricken Concorde, a charter service carrying mostly German tourists heading to New York for a Caribbean cruise that would eventually bring them to Sydney for the Olympic Games, had flames and smoke streaming from its engines soon after take-off. An extraordinary photograph taken by a Hungarian plane spotter on holiday in Paris captured the last desperate moments of the jet's two-minute journey. The plane apparently struggled to gain altitude after taking off about 4.40pm, then stalled before rolling over and ploughing into the small hotel.