Making of ‘Concorde’ (by Toshihiko Sato, 2000), 2013

The story behind the photograph…

Air France Concorde Flight 4590 was scheduled to fly from Paris to New York on the afternoon of 25 July 2000. Two minutes after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport, the plane crashed into a hotel in nearby Gonesse, killing all one hundred passengers on board (mostly German tourists en route to New York for a cruise), nine crew and four hotel workers. Amateur photographer Toshihiko Sato captured the appalling moment of departure, with fire raging from the doomed plane’s engine on the left wing. Investigations concluded that a poorly installed strip of titanium alloy had dropped off a Continental Airlines DC-10 that had been on the runway shortly before the Concorde. This debris punctured a tyre and caused a fuel tank to rupture; leaking fuel may then have been set alight by an electric arc in the landing gear bay. There was no way the cockpit crew could accelerate, halt or climb. A criminal investigation led to Continental Airlines being fined and ordered to pay Air France 1 million Euros, plus a share in the 100 million Euro compensation paid to the victims’ families; the mechanic responsible for the strip installation error was given a suspended sentence. Three years after the crash, civil supersonic flights were ended.