Continental charged in France over Concorde crash

A Bloomberg report says that Continental Airlines and two of its employees will stand trial for involuntary manslaughter over the crash of a Concorde jet in 2000 that killed 113 people and heralded the end of the world’s only supersonic passenger plane.

Debris that dropped from a Continental DC-10 has been blamed for the crash of the Air France Concorde at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. The carrier now faces charges for negligence in maintaining its planes, according to a statement from the office of prosecutor Marie-Therese de Givry in Pontoise, France.

All 109 people on the Concorde and four on the ground were killed in the disaster on July 25, 2000.

The two employees of Houston-based Continental face charges of improperly installing metal strips on the DC-10, a failure investigators say ultimately led to the crash. The airline, which said the charges were “completely unjust,” could be fined as much as 375,000 euros ($596,000), said French liability lawyer Marie Albertini.

“The amounts aren’t very high but the case isn’t good for Continental’s reputation,” said Albertini, a lawyer at Reed Smith in Paris.

“The damages from a civil case brought by the victims’ families could be a lot higher, and they could bring the case in the U.S.”

Investigators found the Paris accident was caused by a titanium strip that fell from a Continental DC-10 that had taken off from the same runway.

The strip subsequently caused a Concorde tire to explode, sending out debris that pierced the fuel tanks and caused the fire that resulted in the crash.

Continental and its workers, who weren’t identified, face different charges, according to the prosecutor’s office.

One employee is being charged for having made and installed the metal piece used on the DC-10, “without respecting the rules in force.”

The statement didn’t specify how rules weren’t obeyed.

The second, the U.S. airline’s chief of services, is being charged for having allowed a change to be made to the metal band without getting proper authorization.

Continental itself is being charged for allowing the DC-10 to go back into service and for not properly maintaining the aircraft.

“The indictments are outrageous and completely unjust,” said Nick Britton, a spokesman for the carrier in London.  “Continental Airlines remains fully convinced that neither it nor its employees were the cause of the Concorde tragedy and we will defend ourselves vigorously against these charges.”

Britton declined to immediately comment on the status of any civil case.

In addition to Continental and its employees, a former French civil aviation official and two former members of the Concorde program will stand trial, the prosecutor’s office said, without identifying them.

They are accused of negligence in treating earlier signs of problems with the supersonic jet.

Air France-KLM Group spokeswoman Marina Tymen said the airline had no immediate comment. Jacques Rocard, a spokesman for Airbus France, the successor company to Aerospatiale SA, the French planemaker involved in building the Concorde, wasn’t immediately available to comment.

Air France and British Airways Plc grounded their Concorde fleets in 2003, three years after the accident.

De Givry sent a report to a judge Feb. 27 asking for the defendants to face trial.

She said at the time that seven years of investigations led to the decision to bring charges.

A Report by The Mole from Bloomberg