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Concorde trial seeks cause of deadly crash
AFP - Wednesday, February 3
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Interactive graphic on the July 2000 crash of an Air France Concorde shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.
PONTOISE, France (AFP) - – French engineers who built the Concorde on Tuesday went on trial along with Continental Airlines mechanics accused of causing the crash 10 years ago that sounded the death knell for supersonic travel.
Judge Dominique Andreassier opened the hearing by reading out the names of the 113 people who died when the Air France jet smashed into a hotel in a ball of fire just after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.
She then read out the charges against Continental Airlines and two of its technical staff who are accused of the manslaughter of 109 people on the plane -- most of them German tourists -- and four hotel workers on the ground.
A former French civil aviation official and two former Concorde engineers were read out the same charges in the mammoth trial expected to last four months and cost more than three million euros ($4.2 million).
The first day of hearings was mostly taken up with procedural matters to organise the trial that will hear testimony from dozens of witnesses and experts and will examine 90 volumes of case files and 534 pieces of evidence.
The court will examine conflicting explanations of why the New York-bound jet crashed just two minutes after taking off on July 25, 2000.
It will decide whether to side with investigators and technical experts who say the crash was caused by a strip of metal that fell off a Continental jet which took off shortly before the Concorde.
But it will also ask whether the French official and engineers failed to correct faults on the iconic jet favoured by the rich and famous for their trans-Atlantic trips.
"I am here to prove that Continental Airlines is not responsible," Continental lawyer Olivier Metzner said as he arrived at the court in Pontoise, near Paris.
"There is an attempt to protect the Concorde and the image that it projected of France," he said.
Continental faces a maximum fine of 375,000 euros ($525,000) if found guilty. The individuals, who all deny the charges, face up to five years in jail and a fine of up to 75,000 euros.
Most of the families of the people who died in the crash agreed not to take legal action in exchange for compensation from Air France, the EADS aerospace firm, Continental and Goodyear tyre maker.
A French accident inquiry concluded in December 2004 that the disaster was partly caused by a strip of metal that fell on the runway from a Continental DC-10 plane that took off just before the supersonic jet.
The Concorde, carrying mainly German passengers heading to New York to board a Caribbean cruise ship, ran over the super-hard titanium strip, it said.
The strip shredded one tyre, causing a blow-out and sending debris flying into an engine and a fuel tank and setting it on fire, according to investigators.
Continental is accused of failing to properly maintain its aircraft.
Two of its US employees -- John Taylor, a mechanic who allegedly fitted the non-standard strip, and airline chief of maintenance Stanley Ford -- are also charged.
Neither turned up in court Tuesday.
Ford sent a letter saying unspecified "personal circumstances" prevented him from attending but that he hoped to appear at a later date.
Taylor's lawyer said his client could not come to France because he did not have a passport, was not a US citizen and could therefore not return to the United States if he left the country.
Henri Perrier, director of the first Concorde programme at Aerospatiale, now part of the EADS group, from 1978 to 1994, and Jacques Herubel, Concorde's chief engineer from 1993 to 1995, are accused of ignoring warning signs from a string of incidents on Concorde planes.
During their 27 years of service, the jets suffered dozens of tyre blowouts or wheel damage that in several cases pierced the fuel tanks.
Claude Frantzen, director of technical services at the French civil aviation authority DGAC from 1970 to 1994, is accused of overlooking a fault on Concorde's distinctive delta-shaped wings, which held its fuel tanks.
The Concorde made its maiden commercial flight in 1976. Only 20 were made, six for development and the remaining 14 for flying mainly trans-Atlantic routes at speeds of up to 1,350 miles (2,170 kilometres) an hour.
Air France and British Airways grounded their Concordes for 15 months after the crash and, after a brief resumption, finally ended the supersonic commercial service in 2003.
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