Continental was ordered to pay civil damages of more than $1.3 million to Air France and a fine of $265,000. The mechanic was fined $2,650 and given a suspended 15-month prison sentence; three other defendants involved in the plane’s design and certification were acquitted.
A 2002 report by French air accident investigators concluded that a small strip of metal that had fallen off a Continental DC-10 that took off minutes earlier had punctured a tire of the Concorde as it accelerated down the runway on July 25, 2000. The tire disintegrated in seconds, investigators said, sending shards of rubber into the fuel tanks and sending the plane crashing into a hotel near the airport, flames pouring from its undercarriage.
All 109 passengers and crew members were killed, along with 4 people on the ground.
The court faulted the mechanic, John Taylor, 42, for using titanium, rather than a softer metal like aluminum, to construct a replacement piece for the DC-10 called a "wear strip." It also accused him of improperly attaching the strip to the aircraft, resulting in it falling onto the runway. Continental said it would appeal the “absurd” ruling, which took more than a decade to work its way through the French courts. “To find that any crime was committed in this tragic accident is not supported either by the evidence at trial or by aviation authorities and experts around the world,” Nick Britton, a Continental spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.
The decision to proceed with criminal charges in the Concorde case has alarmed airlines and aviation safety experts worldwide, who contend that the threat of prosecution can dissuade some witnesses from cooperating in crash investigations. France is one of a handful of countries that routinely seeks criminal indictments in transportation accidents, regardless of whether there is clear evidence of criminal intent or negligence.
"Verdicts like this tend to drive safety underground,” said William R.
Voss, President of the Flight Safety Foundation based in Alexandria, Virginia. "Accident investigations depend on information from professionals who can admit mistakes when they happen,” he said. The threat of criminal conviction "generates a climate where people are unlikely to do that,” he said.
At the trial, before Judge Dominique Andréassier in Pontoise, northwest of Paris, a lawyer for Continental, Olivier Metzner, argued that investigators had disregarded accounts of more than 20 witnesses that the plane appeared to have caught fire at a point on the runway several yards before it reached the metal strip.
The three defendants who were acquitted were Henri Perrier, 81, considered the “father” of the iconic supersonic jet and an executive of Aérospatiale, the company that built the Concorde; and Jacques Hérubel and Claude Frantzen, formerly of the French airline regulator that certified the plane’s airworthiness.
Air France itself was not accused of wrongdoing and joined the case as a civil party in the hope of recouping damages from Continental. The $1.3 million in damages awarded on Monday was far less than the nearly $20 million the French airline had sought. The airline reached a $150 million settlement in 2001 with the families of the victims, most of whom were German citizens. But Monday’s verdict could still open the door to millions of dollars in potential litigation by the victims’ families against Continental and against European Aeronautic Defense and Space, the parent company of Airbus, which absorbed Aérospatiale in the 1970s. Judge Andréassier said EADS would have to share 30 percent of any future civil damages resulting from the accident.
The crash of Air France Flight 4590 was the only fatal accident involving the Concorde, which first took to the skies in 1969. became an emblem of trans-Atlantic luxury travel. Flying at twice the speed of sound, its Paris-New York crossing was less than four hours and its London-New York time just three and a half.
The disaster helped bring an end to the commercial operations of the plane, which had become a financial burden for its two operators, Air France and British Airways. Both airlines took the plane out of service in 2003. Only 20 of the planes were built, and just 14 entered commercial service.
