25 years ago today... (7-25-00)

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New York, July 25, 2000

Air France Reports Concorde Accident in Paris

Air France regrets to report that a Concorde crashed on take-off from Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport at 4:44 p.m. today. Flight AF 4590 was chartered to a German tour operator.

The 100 passengers, 9 cabin and cockpit crew, were en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Air France is working closely with government officials and the French Civil Aviation authorities (DGAC) to investigate this tragic accident.

Air France offers its sincere condolences and is providing assistance and support to passengers’ families.

  • USA family assistance hotline: 1-800-874-0097
  • Paris family hotline from outside of France: 33-1-43 37 31 50
  • Calls from within France: 0-800 800 812
  • Calls from within Germany: 089-97620
  • Tel. for US media only: 1-212-830 4365.

Air France will be holding a press conference in New York today at 8 p.m. EST at the Le Parker Meridien located at 118 W. 57th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues, 3rd floor, room Rivoli A.

No further information is available yet.

New York, July 25, 2000

Concorde Flight AF4590
Media Update #2

Air France offers its sincere condolences to passengers’ families.

Information concerning the flight

  • Flight number: AF 4590
  • Airport of departure: Roissy-CDG, south runway
  • Airport of arrival: New York, JFK

Circumstances of accident

  • Nature of the accident: problem with left-motor upon take-off
  • UT and local time: 3h44PM UT; 4h44 PM French local time
  • Human losses: 100 passengers, 9 crew members, 4 people on the ground who were within proximity of impact

The passengers
There was 100 passengers:

  • 2 Danish
  • 1 American
  • 47 German
  • 50 non-identified nationality

The plane

  • Tail number: BTSC
  • Aircraft owner: Air France
  • Entry into working service: the 23th of October, 1980
  • Engine type: Rolls Royce Olympus 593
  • Flight hours: 11 989
  • Number of landings: 3 978
  • Last A visit: 07/21/2000
  • Last C visit: 04/28/2000
    NB: the plane had no cracks.

Free phone numbers

  • USA family assistance hotline: 1-800-874 0097
  • Paris family hotline from outside France: 33 1 43 37 31 50
  • Calls from within France: 0 800 800 812
  • Calls from within Germany: 089-97620
  • Tel. for US media only: 1-212-830 4365
3

CNN (July 25, 2000)

Concorde crashes near Paris, killing 113

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 12:33 p.m. EDT (1633 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

PARIS – An Air France Concorde en route to New York City crashed outside Paris shortly after takeoff Tuesday, slamming into a hotel in the town of Gonesse and killing 113 people, French officials said.

Interior Ministry officials said all 109 aboard the chartered flight and at least four people on the ground were killed.

The crash took place shortly before 5 p.m. local time (1500 GMT / 11 a.m. EDT), after takeoff from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport. “It was a sickening site, a huge fireball,” eyewitness Sid Hare told CNN.

Hare said the crash occurred about two miles from the hotel where he is staying.

France’s LCI television quoted eyewitnesses as saying the aircraft was not able to gain sufficient altitude before it crashed, and that police were keeping onlookers away from the site.

“The airplane was struggling to climb and obviously couldn’t get altitude,” Hare, a pilot for Federal Express, said via telephone from France.

He said the Concorde had reached an altitude of about 200 feet before flames started shooting out from a left-side engine.

“He (the pilot) kept raising the nose … and the airplane stalled, the nose went straight up into the air and the airplane actually rolled over to the left and almost inverted when it went down in huge fireball when it hit (the ground),” Hare said.

France Info radio quoted another eyewitness as saying the plane’s motor was on fire and that a huge cloud of black smoke went up in the air.

British Airways said Monday it had found cracks in the wings of some of its supersonic aircraft, but said there was no danger to passengers.

The Concorde, which crosses the Atlantic at 1,350 mph, has been considered among the world’s safest planes. Its only major scare came in 1979, when a bad landing blew out a plane’s tires. The incident led to a design modification.

The plane is popular with celebrities, world-class athletes and the rich. It flies above turbulence at nearly 60,000 feet, crossing the Atlantic in about 3 1/2 hours, less than half that of regular jetliners.

The first Concorde flew in 1969. Now, 13 of the needle-nosed supersonic jets are operated by Air France and British Airways. A round-trip Paris-New York ticket costs $9,000, roughly 25 percent more than regular first class. A London-New York round-trip runs $9,850.

Air France officials have said in the past that their current fleet is fit to fly safely until 2007.

Paris Bureau Chief Peter Humi and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

4

Concorde safety in the spotlight

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 1:39 PM EDT (1739 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

Concorde had enjoyed a relatively good safety record before this crash, but its history had not been without incident.

The original life span of the Anglo-French aircraft, which was introduced into commercial service in 1975, was only supposed to be up to 15 years.

But in 1997, at the age of 22, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority gave British Airways’ seven-strong fleet a 20-year extension. Air France officials have said in the past that their current fleet is fit to fly until 2007.

In January this year, a BA Concorde was forced to make two emergency landings at London’s Heathrow Airport.

In the first incident, the jet, carrying 100 passengers on a charter flight around the Bay of Biscay, made an emergency landing after the flight crew reported that a cockpit warning light indicated a fire.

Less than 24 hours later, engine failure on the same aircraft forced it to make an unscheduled landing at the same airport.

In August 1999, it was revealed that two British Airways Concorde aircraft had been involved in a “near miss” over New York. The incident occurred at 2,000 ft near JFK International Airport as one plane from London was preparing to land while another took off for London.

The planes, travelling at 200 mph, passed just 800 ft apart. BA described the incident at the time as a “non-event,” adding that pilots of both aircraft had visual contact and were fully aware of the situation.

In May 1998, seven Concorde aircraft were checked by engineers and then cleared for service after a New York flight had to return to Heathrow an hour into its journey. The supersonic plane, carrying 62 passengers, returned to London after a 4 ft by 2 ft panel became dislodged from a wing.

In 1997, a BA Concorde flight to New York suffered an “engine surge” which caused a bang and lights to go out. The aircraft also dropped suddenly. Pete Townsend, guitarist with The Who pop group, was a passenger and said afterwards he would never fly on Concorde again. He said: “I was just glad to land in one piece.”

Again in 1997, two transatlantic flights in the space of a week were disrupted – in the first incident a Concorde had to dump fuel and return to JFK International Airport, New York, and another suffered a power surge on a flight from Barbados.

Earlier this week, it emerged that a British Airways Concorde was taken out of service after a crack developed in its wings. Six others were also found to have cracks in the rear of their wings. The cracks were deemed to pose no risk to safety.

5

Concorde: The supersonic airliner

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

story.concorde
The Concorde made its maiden flight on March 2, 1969

An Anglo-French project, Concorde entered service in the mid-1970s and is the world’s only supersonic passenger aircraft.

British Airways has seven Concorde aircraft, while six flew for Air France.

The aircraft is capable of crossing the Atlantic in three hours and 45 minutes at a cruising speed twice the speed of sound, or 1,370 miles per hour.

Despite the detection of cracks in the wings of all seven of British Airways’ Concorde fleet this week, the plane has been regarded as one of the world’s safest passenger aircraft.

However, in January this year, a Concorde aircraft made two emergency landings at Heathrow Airport, due to engine failure.

The flight crew on the BA charter flight to the Bay of Biscay reported that a cockpit warning light indicated a fire in the rear hold 20 minutes into the flight. British Airways described the incidents at the time as “pure coincidence.”

The plane that now caters to the rich and famous was developed throughout the 1960s by British and French aerospace engineers. The future dominated the revolutionary design of the sleek dart-shaped plane. The first Concorde, the 001, rolled onto the tarmac in 1967, but it took two more years of testing and fine-tuning the powerful engines before it made its maiden flight on March 2, 1969 over France.

Only 20 were ever built, though the original plan was for 300.

story.nose.newscast
A round trip fare on the Concorde from Paris to New York costs close to $10,000

In 1972, the plane’s future looked bright. More than a dozen airlines had placed orders for the aircraft, and even at a staggering $3.5 billion development cost, France and Britain expected to recoup their investment.

But a year later, the Arab oil embargo hit the fuel-guzzling Concorde hard, as the price of fuel spiralled and prospective buyers dropped out.

Eventually, the British and French governments were forced to write off the cost of the plane’s production.

Only Air France and British Airways operate the Concorde on transatlantic flights.

6

Concorde: Charter company ‘deeply shocked’

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 2:28 PM EDT (1828 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

story.plane.crash.gonesse

The head of the travel company which chartered the Concorde that crashed in France has spoken of his “deep shock” following the tragedy.

Peter Deilmann, speaking on Germany’s ZDF public television, said his company had chartered the Concorde to fly 99 passengers to New York where they had been due to embark on a luxury cruise ending in Ecuador.

He said: “Based on our records there were 99 passengers booked on the plane. I can’t be 100 percent certain, but…nearly all were German.” The company, Peter Deilmann Reederei, had booked 510 passengers onto the MS Deutschland liner for the luxury cruise around the Caribbean.

The firm concentrates on the top end of the travel market, with British marketing director Desri Omer telling CNN Interactive that chartering the Air France Concorde had been a one-off “treat.”

The holidaymakers were to have boarded the five-star MS Deutschland on July 27 bound for Manta in Ecuador.

From there passengers were to disembark or continue on a series of cruises that will finish in Australia on September 13 to coincide with the Sydney Olympics.

MS Deutschland, which Peter Deilmann Reederei took delivery of in 1998, is said by the company to provide a luxurious service for passengers.

It is described on the company website as a “grand hotel reminiscent of the golden era of cruise travel.”

The Deilmann firm has its headquarters in Neustadt, Germany, with offices in central London in the UK and in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.

Peter Deilmann began his ship owning career in cargo shipping in 1968, expanding into passenger lines between Germany and Denmark.

By the mid-1990s the company was carrying around 30,000 people a year.

It concentrates on four and five-star river cruises on the major waterways of Europe, but has two luxury ships and a yacht for ocean-going voyages, which cover the Mediterranean, Canary Islands and Caribbean.

Reuters contributed to this report.

7

British Airways halts Concorde flights following Air France crash

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 2:45 PM EDT (1845 GMT)

British Airways has taken the “unprecedented step” of canceling two Concorde flights between New York and London and is waiting to decide on further flights in the wake of the Air France Concorde crash.

Any decision by Air France concerning its five other Concorde planes is not expected until an inquiry into the disaster has taken place.

A British Airways spokesman said the 14:00 EDT (18:00 GMT) BA 003 flight from Heathrow, London, to JFK, New York, had been cancelled as well as the BA004 flight in the opposite direction, 13:45 EDT (17.45 GMT).

A question mark also hangs over Wednesday’s Concorde flights from Heathrow as technical experts from British Airways and Air France investigate possible causes of the disaster in which 113 people died.

Air accident investigators from Britain’s Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions are on their way to assist their French counterparts.

British Airways said in a statement it had taken the “unprecedented step” of canceling flights while it waits for further information, but insisted it still has “complete confidence” in Concorde.

A spokesman for the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, which has jurisdiction over the Concorde aircraft operated by British Airways, said there was “no reason” to ground BA’s supersonic fleet.

He said: “There is no indication as yet to the cause of the crash in Paris. There is nothing we can do until the French authorities come up with their preliminary findings into the crash.”

Under international aviation law, domestic aviation authorities do not have jurisdiction over foreign aircraft.

Rolls Royce, builder of the engines for Concorde airliners, would not comment on speculation that witnesses had seen fire trailing from the aircraft’s left engine as it departed Paris for its transatlantic flight.

Share prices in Air France fell following news of the crash, closing 3.5 per cent lower.

8

Schroeder leads condolences

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 2:48 PM EDT (1848 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

link.schroeder
Schroeder: “Germany and France are united in their horror”

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has led world reaction to the disaster following confirmation that the 99 dead passengers in the Concorde crash are from Germany.

Mr Schroeder expressed his deepest condolences for the passengers killed in the crash. “Germany and France are united in their horror over the accident,” he said in a statement.

“I received news of the tragic air crash near Paris, in which more than 100 people were reportedly killed, with great dismay,” Schroeder said in a statement. “President (Jacques) Chirac and Prime Minister (Lionel) Jospin called me immediately after news of the accident to express their condolences.” A spokesman for the German government said Schroeder had cancelled his evening appointments to stay on top of developments. The German Foreign Ministry has set up crisis centers in Paris and Berlin.

President Clinton, speaking at Camp David in the United States, said: “Like all of you I just heard the news of the crash of the Concorde outside of Paris, and I wanted to extend the deepest condolences of the American people to the families of those who are lost.”

Lionel Jospin visited the scene of the crash, just outside Paris, within hours. Accompanied by his Transportation Minister, Jean-Claude Gayssot, Mr Jospin said: “This accident is extremely serious, because it is almost completely certain that there were no survivors on the plane, and therefore I am thinking about all the victims, the crew, and our friends in Germany.”

He added the condition of around a dozen people injured on the ground was “good from a medical standpoint.”

Germany’s Transport Minister Reinhard Klimmt is heading for the scene of the crash.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

9

Concorde: Speed and luxury

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 2:53 PM EDT (1853 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

hangar
Concorde: Transatlantic return tickets cost about $10,000

Flying on Concorde is the preferred choice of celebrities and the wealthy.

Crossing the Atlantic at 1,350 mph while cruising above turbulence at nearly 60,000 ft, with an average flight time of about 3.5 hours, passengers arrive at their transatlantic destination twice as fast as regular jetliners.

A return ticket from Paris or London to New York costs about $10,000 – roughly 25 percent more than first class on other planes.

It is said that Air France and British Airways, the only two companies that run Concorde aircraft, need to fill just half of each of the aircraft’s 100 seats for a flight to break even.

The aircraft’s sleek design and jet-set image was enhanced during the Live Aid event in 1985 when pop star Phil Collins flew Concorde so that he could perform live at both the UK and US venues, in London and Philadelphia, on the same day.

phil
Phil Collins: Flew Concorde for Live Aid

During the Millennium Eve celebrations in London, a Concorde was given permission to fly above the River Thames at a height of just several hundred feet.

But superstar Diana Ross had a less satisfying experience on Concorde when she was arrested and escorted off the plane at Heathrow Airport, London, in September 1999.

The singer was preparing to fly to New York when she was detained for five hours by police in connection with an alleged assault on a female airport security officer. Afterwards, a police spokesman said she had been cautioned and would face no further action.

Former British minister Jack Cunningham also ran into trouble after taking a flight on the world’s fastest passenger plane.

Mr Cunningham was the Labour Government’s Cabinet Office Minister in 1998 when he was criticized by political opponents – and also some colleagues – for flying to Washington via New York by Concorde at the taxpayers’ expense.

10

French investigation launched into Concorde disaster

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 3:29 PM EDT (1929 GMT)

Teams of investigators have begun the grim task of sifting through the debris from the crashed Air France Concorde in a bid to determine the cause of the catastrophe.

The French government agency that is to investigate the crash – Bureau Enquetes-Accidents – said it had dispatched an accident team to the site and had asked for help from the US National Transportation Safety Board.

Two British air accident investigators flew out immediately the crash happened, and a third will follow Wednesday.

According to a 1978 Memorandum of Understanding, experts from both countries are required to participate in the investigation of any Concorde accident.

Jacques Gererd, of the Direction General de L’Aviation Civil, said: “Investigators will publish an interim report as soon as possible. A full report, however, could take months to prepare.”

The investigators’ first task will be to find the two aircraft flight recorders, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, which will provide vital information into why the supersonic plane plunged minutes after take-off.

Firefighters poured streams of water on the blackened wreckage, which had broken up into scattered, smoking chunks. The remains of the Concorde were barely recognizable as an airplane fuselage.

The hotel was in flames after the crash, and sections had been reduced to rubble and twisted metal.

There was no immediate word on what might have caused the crash of the jet, which had been in service since 1980 and had just had a mechanical checkup on July 21. In the more than 30 years that Concorde jets have flown, none had gone down.

The investigators will want to recover as much of the plane as possible and will attempt to rebuild it, piece by piece. Air France officials told CNN the crash apparently resulted from engine trouble.

Speaking at the crash site, the French Minister of Transportation, Jean-Claude Gayssot, said that, as was the custom, a judicial enquiry had been opened to investigate the cause of the crash.

Witnesses said the jetliner burst into flames at an altitude of 200 feet, with its nose up. A man at a training centre near the crash site of the crash said he heard an explosion and then looked into the air to see the plane coming straight at the building.

“It was flying very low with fire on its wing. The plane tried to do a half-turn in the direction of the airport, but then it fell to the ground. There was another explosion, and a ball of fire,” he said.

11

BBC (July 25, 2000)

Concorde crash kills 113

Tuesday, 25 July, 2000, 19:50 GMT 20:50 UK

concordegrab
The plane came down trailing flames behind it

A Concorde jet bound for New York has crashed in a ball of fire shortly after taking off from Paris, killing 113 people.

The Air France aircraft crashed in flames into the Hotelissimo hotel in the town of Gonesse north of the capital, two minutes after taking-off from Charles de Gaulle airport shortly before 1700 local time (1500GMT).

All 100 passengers - most of them Germans - lost their lives, alongside nine crew members and four people who were killed on the ground.

Helplines

  • Air France in Germany: +49 89 97620
  • German Foreign Ministry:
    • +49 1888 17 4600;
    • +49 1888 17 4899
  • German Embassy in Paris: +33 1 53 83 45 00

Eyewitnesses spoke of a huge fireball and dense clouds of black smoke after the plane hit the ground.

Following the crash, French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot ordered the Civil Aviation Authority to suspend all Air France Concorde flights pending an investigation.

Air France said the passengers were travelling on a flight to John F Kennedy airport specially chartered by German tour operator Deilmann.

They were on their way to join a cruise ship in New York bound for Ecuador.

An emotional Peter Deilmann, who heads the tour company, told German TV he was “deeply shocked” by the disaster.

Within minutes of the crash, dozens of fire-engines and ambulances raced to the scene to tackle the blaze and search for survivors.

Sections of the Relais Bleu hotel had been reduced to rubble and twisted metal. The blackened hulk of the Concorde was barely recognisable.

Engine on fire

Air France confirmed that one of the plane’s four engines had caught fire on take-off, minutes before the aircraft came down.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing a fireball trailing from an engine on the aircraft’s left-side, and that it was not able to gain sufficient altitude before it crashed.

debris
Parts of the hotel were reduced to burning rubble

“When the plane crashed, there was a huge ball of fire and an enormous plume of black smoke,” one said.

Another told reporters the annex of the hotel was “totally in flames”.

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has been visiting the scene and the German transport minister is on his way.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder expressed his deepest condolences, saying: “Germany and France are united in their horror over the accident, in mourning for the victims and in sympathy for their families.”

Plane inspected

Flight AF4590 is the first of the supersonic jets to crash.

It comes a day after British Airways confirmed hairline cracks had been discovered in the wings of all seven of its Concorde fleet.

However, the head of Air France said Tuesday’s crash was linked to an engine problem and apparently had nothing to do with the cracks.

A BBC correspondent in Paris says the plane was inspected only four days ago, and no problems were found. The Air France plane has been in operation since 1980 and has been subject to a number of inspections recently.

The Concorde has been considered among the world’s safest planes since its launch in 1969.

Its only major scare came in 1979, when a bad landing blew out a plane’s tyres. The incident led to a design modification.

Concorde facts

  • First plane flew in 1969
  • 13 supersonic jets operated by BA and Air France
  • Flies above turbulence at almost 60,000 feet
  • Crosses Atlantic at 1,350mph in less than 3.5 hours

Black box search

A spokesman for the French Civil Aviation Authority said it would not immediately ground the French Concorde fleet.

“It is too early to say what we are going to do,” he said.

French investigators are searching for the plane’s black box recorder which holds vital clues to the cause of the accident.

British Airways has cancelled two Concorde services scheduled for Tuesday night.

12

CNN (July 25, 2000)

Concorde frequent flier saddened by crash

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 5:03 p.m. EDT (2103 GMT)

Hans Hollander, a 72-year-old New Yorker honored by Air France for being the most frequent flier on the Concorde, said Tuesday he was shocked by the crash of the supersonic airliner near Paris.

“Oh my God. I am extremely sad about this,” he told Reuters when he learned of the crash. “This has left me in a state of shock.”

Hollander, an aviation expert and former president of the American Aerospace and Defense Agency, has flown on Concorde 528 times – spending a total of 77 days on board.

Air France put on a special ceremony to mark Hollander’s 500th flight with the plane. He has flown on Concorde more than anyone else.

Hollander has flown 1.7 million miles aboard Concorde since his first flight in 1977. The vast majority were with Air France: “I took maybe seven or eight on British Airways.”

In a telephone interview from New York, he said the crash would not deter him from flying on the plane again.

“I hope to take it in the next month,” he said. “I still believe it is the future…It has always been such a reliable aircraft.”

He said the Concorde has always given him a great feeling of safety.

Concorde pilot to release autobiography

Brian Trubshaw, the test pilot who flew Concorde on its maiden flight in 1969, is about to release his autobiography, “Concorde: The Inside Story.”

Rebecca Nicholls, spokeswoman for Sutton Publishing, said he was “very, very upset” but would proceed with the launch of the book at an air show at Farnborough, England, on Wednesday.

“I hope people do not think it is distasteful. He has nothing to hide,” she said.

“He obviously feels dreadful,” Nicholls said. “The track record for British Airways with Concorde has been impeccable.”

The Concorde airliner crashed in the French town of Gonesse just after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all on board and four people on the ground, rescue services said.

The aircraft was bound for New York with 100 German tourists on a flight chartered by a German tour operator.

Reuters contributed to this report.

13

‘Black boxes’ recovered at Concorde crash site

July 25, 2000
Web posted at: 7:10 p.m. EDT (2310 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

debris
Tuesday’s disaster is the first time a Concorde has crashed since the plane went into service in the mid-1970s

PARIS – Investigators have recovered both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the Air France Concorde that crashed near Paris today, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground.

paris

The chartered flight en route to New York City plunged into a hotel-restaurant complex shortly after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport.

“The Concorde (was) to our immediate left as he accelerated down the runway, the engine was already smoking,” said Darren Atkins, who was in another plane waiting to depart from the airport.

All 109 people aboard the aircraft were killed after it burst into flames and plunged into a hotel-restaurant complex. Four people on the ground were killed.

The airline said Flight AF4590 carried a full load of 100 passengers – 96 Germans, two Danes, one Austrian and one American – and nine crew members.

Three children were among the passengers, French TV reported.

Air France said it was flying families of the victims to de Gaulle airport on special flights from Germany. Counselors will meet with the families in a room set up at the airport.

A makeshift morgue was set up in the Jacques Brel Auditorium in Gonesse. Workers placed plastic sheets on the floors where the victims were to be placed. At the crash site, ambulances and hearses were loaded with the first bodies recovered from the accident.

The jet crashed into a building believed to be a hotel restaurant, turning it into “a burned out shell,” CNN Correspondent Jim Bittermann reported from the scene. The rest of the hotel complex was still standing. The hotel was identified in French media reports as the 72-room Relais Bleus.

Police said about a dozen people on the ground were injured. French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who visited the scene, said the condition of those injured was “good from a medical standpoint.”

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder expressed his deepest condolences. “Germany and France are united in their horror over the accident, in mourning for the victims and in sympathy for their families,” Schroeder said in a statement.

The chancellor said his transport minister, Rheinhard Klimmt, was on his way to the scene.

In the United States, President Bill Clinton offered his “deepest condolences … to the families of those who are lost.”

The Concorde, loaded with fuel for the trans-Atlantic flight, went down shortly after takeoff, crashing near the town of Gonesse, about 10 miles (15 km) north of Paris, at 4:44 p.m. local time (1444 GMT / 10:44 a.m. EDT).

gonesse

“It was a sickening sight, a huge fireball,” eyewitness Sid Hare told CNN. “The airplane was struggling to climb and obviously couldn’t get altitude.”

‘All of a sudden, everything was black’

The plane had been chartered by Peter Deilmann River and Ocean Cruises, a German tour company, and the passengers were on their way to New York to join a cruise ship.

The Air France flight was due to arrive at New York’s Kennedy Airport at 2:21 p.m. EDT Tuesday, according to airport officials there.

cruise

Deilmann’s U.S. office, based in Alexandria, Virginia, confirmed that the passengers were scheduled to embark Thursday in New York on a luxury cruise aboard the MS Deutschland. The cruise was scheduled to end on August 8 in Manta, Ecuador.

Huge clouds of black smoke could be seen for miles around the crash scene, and police blocked off all roads leading to the site, an area of farmland, crisscrossed by highways. Dozens of fire trucks and ambulances rushed to the scene.

Frederic Savery, 21, was driving home when he saw the plane go down. “I saw the plane, it passed 30 meters (60 feet) above us, the whole back end of the plane was on fire,” Savery said.

“We saw it start to turn, but we didn’t hear a noise when it crashed. All of a sudden, everything was black, we stopped right there and called the firefighters.”

Samir Hossein, 15, a student in Gonesse, was playing tennis with friends when they saw the plane go by, its rear motor on fire. “We saw it lose altitude. It chopped off those trees and headed to the ground. The pilot tried to bank but the plane rolled over and smacked into the hotel nose first and turned over,” he said.

“We saw flames shoot up 40 meters (120 feet) and there was a huge boom,” Hossein said.

‘Smoke trailing’ from engine

Hare, a Federal Express pilot who was at a hotel near de Gaulle airport, said he could “see smoke trailing” from one of the plane’s two left engines before the crash.

“It started rolling over and backsliding down to the ground. At that point it was probably two miles from me,” Hare told CNN.

Eyewitnesses said the aircraft was not able to gain sufficient altitude before it crashed. Hare said the Concorde had reached an altitude of about 200 feet before flames started shooting from the engine.

“He (the pilot) kept raising the nose … and the airplane stalled, the nose went straight up into the air and the airplane actually rolled over to the left and almost inverted when it went down in huge fireball when it hit (the ground),” Hare said.

concorde.bodies
White sheets cover the bodies of the victims

First crash in Concorde history

French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot on Tuesday asked France’s civil aviation authority to suspend all Concorde flights on Wednesday.

Spinetta later said no Concordes would fly Wednesday and that the day would be used to check the rest of the company’s fleet of Concordes.

In a statement released in Paris, Gayssot said the step, which was taken in agreement with Air France, was necessary to allow time for a preliminary investigation into the causes of the crash to take place.

Tuesday’s disaster was the first time a Concorde jet has crashed since the plane went into service in the mid-1970s. Now, 13 of the needle-nosed supersonic jets are operated by Air France and British Airways.

Air France officials said the plane that crashed Tuesday went into service in 1980 and received major routine maintenance 10 months ago.

On Monday, British Airways said it had found cracks in the wings of some of its seven Concordes, but said there was no danger to passengers.

After the crash Tuesday, the British airline canceled its two Monday night Concorde flights between London and New York.

The Concorde, which crosses the Atlantic at 1,350 mph, has been considered among the world’s safest planes. Its only major scare came in 1979, when a bad landing blew out a plane’s tires. The incident led to a design modification.

On January 30 of this year, a Concorde aircraft made an emergency landing at London’s Heathrow Airport – the second such landing within a 24-hour period by one of the supersonic jets.

A cockpit alarm had sounded, warning of a fire in the rear cargo hold, but engineers found no problem.

The previous day, one of four engines had shut down on a Concorde as it approached Heathrow.

The plane is popular with celebrities, world-class athletes and the rich. It flies above turbulence at nearly 60,000 feet, crossing the Atlantic in about 3 1/2 hours, less than half the time that regular jetliners take.

A round-trip Paris-New York ticket costs $9,000, roughly 25 percent more than regular first class. A London-New York round-trip runs $9,850.

Air France officials have said in the past that their current fleet is fit to fly safely until 2007.

Paris Bureau Chief Peter Humi, Correspondent Jim Bittermann, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

INFORMATION HOT LINE
Air France inquiries
331-48-62-49-49

Background:
Flight AF4590 aircraft
Delivered to Air France on June 17, 1979
Put into service Oct. 23, 1980
Landings by plane 3,978
Flying hours 11,989
Last ‘C’ check completed April 28, 2000

Concorde info:
The Concorde jet is capable of traveling from Paris to New York in three hours, 45 minutes at a cruising speed of Mach 2 or 1,370 miles per hour.

Capacity: Its seating capacity is 100 passengers and it usually has a crew of nine.

Daily service between New York and Paris started in 1977.

The Concorde holds two world speed records for commercial flights. In 1992, it circled the globe from east to west in 32 hours, 49 minutes and three seconds. Three years later, the Concorde flew west to east in 31 hours, 27 minutes and 49 seconds.

14

New York, July 25, 2000

Concorde Flight AF4590
Media Update #3

Press Conference, New York, July 25, 2000, 8:00 p.m. EST: Statement by Christopher Korenke, VP and General Manager, Air France USA

First, let me express my deepest and most profound sympathy to the families, friends and colleagues of our passengers and crew on this chartered Concorde flight. As you can imagine, this is a very emotional and sad time for all of us at Air France, and there are no words to express adequately the pain and grief we share with the families of the victims on this tragic flight. We pledge to the families as our first priority our assistance during this most difficult time.

In addition, I want to express my sincere thanks on behalf of all of us at Air France to the people - both in Europe and here in the U.S. - who responded with offers of assistance when news of this accident was reported. I met with New York Mayor Giuliani a few minutes ago and want to thank him for offering help from the City, including grief counsellors and other resources that may be needed here.

The fullest resources of Air France are devoted to this accident - both to attending to the needs of the family members, and to working with aviation authorities seeking the cause of this tragedy.

Now, let me review what we know about this tragic charter flight accident at this time:

  • Charter flight 4590 operating from Paris (CDG) to New York (Kennedy)

  • 100 passengers, 9 crew

  • Involved in accident on takeoff at 4:44 p.m. local time in Paris

  • All onboard as well as 4 persons on the ground were killed

  • The nationalities of the passengers are as follows: 96 German citizens, two Danish citizens, one American citizen, and one Austrian citizen

  • In accordance with laws in Europe, next-of-kin in Europe are expected to be notified by government officials in their country of residence

  • Transportation is being provided for family members to Paris or to the victims’ homes

  • An Air France management team is on site at the accident, focused as I said on assisting families and on working with aviation investigating authorities

We at Air France want desperately to know - just as you do, and as the families of the victims do - why this tragedy happened. After so many years of great, reliable, and safe service from this aircraft, we all need to know what happened so we can help ensure it never happens again.

Until such time as the proper investigating authorities have determined a cause, we will not enter into any speculation. That would be unfair to the families of the victims of the accident, to the investigating authorities, to the travelling public, and to the people of Air France.

In the meantime, our thoughts and prayers join with those of people all over the world for the families of the 113 people killed so tragically today.

Thank you. I’ll now try to answer any questions I am able to.