Almost eight years after a Concorde supersonic jet crashed near Paris, a French prosecutor has filed a complaint to bring charges against the US carrier Continental Airlines and four people believed to have been negligent in the crash.
Pontoise deputy prosecutor Bernard Farret, whose office is located near the capital, has petitioned a court to file manslaughter charges against the US airline, along with two people employed with the company at the time, as well as a former employee of airplane manufacturer EADS and a former official at France's civil aviation authority (DGAC).
One-hundred-thirteen people died when the jet crashed in Gonesse, just north of Paris, on July 25, 2000. Most of the victims in the disaster were German citizens. A German cruise organizer had chartered the luxury jet to New York.
Investigators attributed the cause of the crash to a metal strip that shredded a tire on Concorde and sent material flying that punctured its fuel tanks and led to a catastrophic fire on board. The investigation concluded that the metal part had fallen off of a Continental Airlines DC-10 jet that took off on the same runway just before the Concorde.
Prosecutors now want to try Continental maintenance engineer John Taylor, who assembled the part that would later fall off, and his supervisor, Stanley Ford, in a French court.
The prosecutors also named Henri Perrier, the now 77-year-old former head of the Concorde division at EADS. The European aerospace giant took over Concorde after it merged with the jet's creator, L'Aerospatiale. Perrier had been a seminal figure in the history of the Franco-British project to build a supersonic jet and even particpated in Concorde's first flight in 1969.
L'Aerospatiale, later EADS, officially listed 67 accidents with Concorde tires between 1979 and 2000, of which seven involved the puncturing of the fuel tanks situated under the wings.
According to the prosecutors, L'Aerospatiale, did not do anything until 2001 to reinforce the protection of the tanks, or to improve Concorde's tires.
A former member of France's civil aviation watchdog, Claude Frantzen, was also named by prosecutors as one of those they want brought to trial.
A decision is expected by the judge on whether charges can be filed within weeks.
Air France and British Airways, the only airlines to fly the presigious aircraft in commercial services, put the Concorde fleet into retirement in 2003, just a few years after the deadly crash.
dsl/afp/reuters
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2008
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
