The trial over the dramatic crash of Air France’s Concorde supersonic airliner, the only one ever to crash, is underway in Pontoise, France, 10 years after the fact. Charges of manslaughter have been filed against five individuals and Continental Airlines. They are accused of being responsible for the deaths of 109 people aboard the ill-fated luxury jet plus four more hotel-workers killed where the jet came down.
The jet crashed several minutes after taking off from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport on July 25, 2000. Most of the passengers were wealthy German tourists heading to New York for a Caribbean cruise; among them three children.
The proceedings are expected to last at least four months and cost over $4.2 million.
Few representatives of the victims were present in the court as most of them agreed to accept financial compensations from Air France, EADS Aerospace firm, Continental and the Goodyear tire manufacturer in exchange of not filing charges. The total amount of the settlement was never made public, but sources say around $100 million was distributed between more than 700 relatives.
Among the charged is Continental Airlines and two senior employees of the company: welder John Taylor and his superior Stanley Ford. They are believed to bear partial responsibility for the crash.
Henri Perrier and the plane’s chief engineer Jacques Herubel, both from Concorde, owned by Air France, are also named in the lawsuit.
The sixth accused is Claude Frantzen, former director of the French civil aviation authority.
The hearings began with reading out the names of those killed in the accident.
If the judges find Continental guilty, the company will need to pay a maximum of $520,000. Each of the individual defendants may face fines of up to $104,000 plus a maximum of five years in jail.
The jet crashed several minutes after taking off from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport on July 25, 2000. Most of the passengers were wealthy German tourists heading to New York for a Caribbean cruise; among them three children.
The proceedings are expected to last at least four months and cost over $4.2 million.
Few representatives of the victims were present in the court as most of them agreed to accept financial compensations from Air France, EADS Aerospace firm, Continental and the Goodyear tire manufacturer in exchange of not filing charges. The total amount of the settlement was never made public, but sources say around $100 million was distributed between more than 700 relatives.
Among the charged is Continental Airlines and two senior employees of the company: welder John Taylor and his superior Stanley Ford. They are believed to bear partial responsibility for the crash.
Henri Perrier and the plane’s chief engineer Jacques Herubel, both from Concorde, owned by Air France, are also named in the lawsuit.
The sixth accused is Claude Frantzen, former director of the French civil aviation authority.
The hearings began with reading out the names of those killed in the accident.
If the judges find Continental guilty, the company will need to pay a maximum of $520,000. Each of the individual defendants may face fines of up to $104,000 plus a maximum of five years in jail.
Controversial Claims: Continental Versus Concorde
At this point, it is not clear what caused the jet to crash. Continental claims that the Concorde group had not corrected known faults on the supersonic plane. Two Continental officials are therefore accused of being aware of major weaknesses in the Concorde’s tire and fuel tank, but failing to take action.
Concorde, on the other hand, is blaming Continental for a 17-inch titanium strip that fell off an engine from one of its DC-10 planes which took off four minutes before the Concorde.
According to an investigative report from December 2004, the metal strip caused a rupture in the fuel tank of the jet and shredded one of its tires. The strip is also pointed to as the cause of a kerosene leak that burst into flames and engulfed the airliner and eventually caused the crash.
Experts say the strip must have been made of aluminum or steel, as titanium is too hard and not appropriate for temporary repair use. This means that Continental engineers may have disregarded safety rules.
In March 2008, a French public prosecutor asked judges to open a lawsuit on manslaughter charges.
Houston-based Continental denies the charges.
“We are going to fight it and establish that the Concorde caught fire eight seconds before this scrap of metal met with the Concorde—so about 700 m [2,300 feet] before,” said Olivier Metzner, the company’s lawyer, BBC reported.
According to the accused airline, 20 people saw a fire on the supersonic plane well before it hit the titanium strip and that the cause of the accident was not Continental’s fault.
“We will prove what the experts refused to see and determine: that a fire broke out on the Concorde well before the debris, the metal plate, comes into contact with the Concorde,” added Metzner, quoted by Euronews.
Some critics have doubted the sense of holding a trial 10 years after the incident. What is more, experts from U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation claim that such lawsuits may discourage aviation think tanks from disclosing important safety information which could be used as precedents in future cases.
Others say Concorde’s reputation was never amnestied despite it was the model’s only crash in 30 years of supersonic flight history. The eventual outcome of the trial might instead decide what is now at stake: the goodwill of the two companies still acting, Continental Airlines and Air France.
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