French appeals court clears Continental Airlines of blame over July 2000 accident that saw jet crash after take-off.
The 2000 Concorde crash killed 113 people, an incident that helped spell the end of the supersonic airliner [Reuters]
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| A French appeals court has absolved Continental Airlines of responsibility for a 2000 Concorde crash which killed 113 people and cleared a mechanic at the US airline of the charge of involuntary manslaughter. The verdict comes more than a decade after the incident that helped to spell the end of the supersonic airliner. A previous court found that a small metal strip, which fell onto the runway from a Continental aircraft just before the Concorde took off from Paris, caused the crash. Continental was originally fined $260,000 and ordered to pay Air France, Concorde's operator, $1.3m in damages. "The lawyer said the original trial had been subjected to political meddling," Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Paris, said following a news conference by the airline's lawyer. Continental appealed against the verdict which it described as unfair and absurd. |