aris crash
The Concorde was the safest airliner in the world according to passenger
deaths per distance travelled until the 25 July 2000 crash of Air France
Flight 4590 in Gonesse, France, although it should be noted that the Boeing
737 fleet acquires more passenger miles and service hours in one week than the
Concorde fleet acquired in the course of its entire service career. In any case,
all of the people on board the flight perished, as well as four people on the
ground. As the plane was on its take-off run, a metal piece punctured the tires
which then burst, puncturing the fuel tanks and leading to the loss of the
aircraft. The report of the investigation was published on 14 December 2004,
attributing the crash to foreign object damage from a titanium strip that fell
from another aircraft, a Continental Airlines DC-10 which had taken off four
minutes before; the piece had not been approved by the US
Federal Aviation Administration.