On January 21st, 1976, one Concorde from British Airways and one from Air France took off from London Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle airports, respectively, each on their maiden scheduled flights. The age of commercial supersonic travel had begun and lasted until 2003. On July 25th, 2000, Air France Flight 4590, crashed in Gonesse, France after departing from Charles de Gaulle in Paris, en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members on board the flight, and four people on the ground. It was the only fatal accident involving Concorde. On April 10th, 2003, Air France and British Airways simultaneously announced that they would retire Concorde later that year. According to the official investigation, the crash was caused by a metallic strip that fell from a Continental Airlines DC-10 that had taken off minutes earlier. That debris punctured a tire on the Concorde, causing a piece of rubber to fly off make contact with the wing and rupture the aircraft’s full tank, igniting a fire. This is video of the doomed Air France Concorde taking off, on fire.
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