US airline, five officials on trial
US airline Continental and five individuals go on trial in France later over the crash of an Air France Concorde nearly 10 years ago.The jet took off in flames from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and crashed minutes later, killing 113 people.
An official report said Concorde had hit a metal strip from a Continental plane that had taken off earlier.
But Continental's lawyers say they can prove the supersonic jet caught fire before it struck the titanium strip.
The stricken Concorde flight 4590 crashed in the town of Gonesse in July 2000, hitting a hotel and killing four people there as well as all 109 on board.
Most of the passengers were German tourists heading to New York to join a luxury cruise to the Caribbean. Nine French crew members also died.
The entire fleet of Concordes was grounded until an inquiry established that one of the plane's tyres had burst, causing debris to shoot out and rupture a fuel tank.
Leaking kerosene then ignited and caused the catastrophe.
