Air France Flight 4590 was a Concorde flight operated by Air France which was scheduled to fly from Charles de Gaulle International Airport near Paris, to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. On 25 July 2000, it crashed into a hotel in Gonesse, France. All one hundred passengers and nine crew members on board the flight died. On the ground, four people were killed and one left with serious injuries.
The flight was chartered by German company Peter Deilmann Cruises. All passengers were on their way to board the cruise ship MS Deutschland in New York City for a 16-day cruise to Manta, Ecuador.
This was Concorde's only accident in which fatalities occurred. It was the beginning of the end for Concorde as an airliner; the type was retired three years later.
Read more about Air France Flight 4590: Event Summary, Concorde Grounded, Accident Investigation, Previous Tyre Incidents, Alternative Theories, Modifications and Revival, Criminal Investigation, In Media
Famous quotes containing the words air and/or flight:
“The air was clear. He seemed in ultimate peace
Except that he had no eyes. Rigid and bright
Upon the forehead, furred
With a light frost, crouched an outrageous bird.”
—Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)