Concorde Crashes near Paris

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Breaking news - got this off Yahoo - can't get to BBC site

Concorde crashes near Paris, hits hotel

PARIS (Reuters) - A supersonic Concorde airliner crashed after take- off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on its way to New York on Tuesday, Air France said, and witnesses said it had ploughed into a hotel near the French capital.

A fire service spokesman said about 100 passengers were on board the airliner. Radio and television reports said the plane had hit a hotel in the town of Gonesse, a few kilometres (miles) southwest of the airport.

There were no immediate reports of the number of dead or injured but a witness in Gonesse told LCI radio he doubted whether anyone on the ground had survived.

"There is one part of the hotel that wasn't touched and the annex of the hotel is completely in flames," the witness said.

The Air France airliner was bound for John F. Kennedy airport outside New York. A witness driving past Charles de Gaulle airport at the time the plane took off told Radio France Info that one of the engines appeared to be on fire.

Air France and British Airways both said on Monday that they had detected microscopic cracks in the wings of Concorde aircraft but Air France said there was no danger to passengers.

Concorde, an Anglo-French project, entered service in the mid-1970s and is the world's only supersonic passenger aircraft. A total of 13 are in service, seven with British Airways and six with Air France.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

Answers

Apparently all 109 passengers and crew reported killed.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

Wow...

I was only reading the reports about the cracked wings yesterday...

Makes you wonder if maybe Air France hadn't put their fleet through the same tests that British Airways did....

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000


Air France gave all 6 of their fleet a clean bill of health yesterday. One stiry says it passed 20 metres above a hotel with both portside engines pouring out huge flames.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

There is an image of the plane traveling low to the ground with flames and smoke trailing it on CNN.com (from reuters). Jesus christ, it looks like a shoot-em down scene from a video game. This is very bad.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

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