The disaster that sealed Concorde's fate will be forensically scrutinised when six defendants go on trial in France on Tuesday over the supersonic jet's crash near Paris 10 years ago.


Air France Concorde: French prosecutors will argue, as investigators have done, that an 18-inch scrap of metal on the runway was to blame

The four-month trial in Cergy-Pontoise will examine at least three theories as to why the Air France Concorde went down near Charles de Gaulle airport on 25 July 2000, killing 113 people.

French prosecutors will argue, as investigators have done, that an 18-inch scrap of metal on the runway was to blame. A Continental Airlines DC-10 shed the titanium "wear strip" on the runway four minutes before takeoff, gashing the Concorde's tyre and showering pieces of rubber into the fuel tanks, which caused a fire, they will say.

The American carrier and two of its US employees are among six defendants charged with the manslaughter of 100 mostly German passengers, nine crew and four people on the ground who died when the Concorde smashed into a motel two miles from the runway.

Continental Airways is accused of using titanium, a very hard metal, even thought it was not allowed for temporary repairs on aircraft.

Continental's lawyer will call 28 witnesses to the box to seek to prove that a fire broke out on the Concorde eight seconds and some 800 yards before it even reached the titanium strip. A key part of the undercarriage had been accidentally left out by Air France ground staff, he will say, causing too much weight to bear on the tyres, one of which exploded when it hit a bump in the runway.

Air France and the French investigators admit that the Concorde's undercarriage was not properly repaired, but insist this would not have caused the tyre to burst.

The trial will also examine whether the jet - the pride of the French and British aviation industries for almost a quarter of a century - was plagued by design vulnerabilities which were systematically ignored to prevent it being grounded.

In the 24 years of Concorde flights before July 2000, there were 65 incidents of burst tyres, six of which led to the perforation of fuel tanks.

Two retired Concorde engineers and a former senior French air safety official are accused of failing to resolve design weak spots, including "neglecting the risk of fires" on the supersonic jet. Their lawyers will say they are not to blame and that the accident was unpredictable.

If convicted, Continental Airways faces a maximum fine of 375,000 euros (£328,000), and the five individual defendants face up to five years in jail and a fine of up to 75,000 euros (£66,000).

Concorde was taken out of service in 2003.

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