Continental Airlines Among The Defendants

Continental Airlines and five individuals have been named as defendants in a French lawsuit which seeks to determine the cause of the Air France Concorde accident ten years ago that killed 113 people and spelled the beginning of the end of the SST's flying days. They face charges of involuntary manslaughter.

The aircraft crashed moments after takeoff when a tire ruptured during the takeoff roll, causing debris to puncture a fuel tank on the airplane which resulted in a catastrophic fire. The plane crashed into a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

Continental is party to the suit because a piece of debris on the runway which is suspected of contributing to the blowout is alleged to have fallen from a Continental DC-10 which departed just ahead of the Concorde.  The French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA) said the strip caused a tire under the left wing to blow, and the resulting debris punctured the fuel tank. But Continental's lawyers told the Associated Press that the fire started several seconds before the airplane ran over the strip of titanium.

CNN reports two the individuals named in the suit were Continental employees responsible for installing the strip on the DC-10, the other three are French officials responsible for the original certification of the SST. The suit contends that French officials knew of design flaws, including a lack of protection for the fuel tanks, which if addressed could have prevented the accident.

The aircraft did resume flights in 2001 after a re-design of the fuel tanks and tires. But the economics of maintaining the airplane and downturn in air travel in the post 9/11 era caused British Airways and Air France to stop flying Concorde altogether in 2003.

FMI: www.bea.aero/en/index.php