Concorde Crashes Enroute To JFK From Paris

Once again JFK International Airport was the scene of intense media activity and concern over an air disaster on Tuesday as word came of the crash of a Concorde aircraft enroute to JFK.
The plane, carrying a chartered group of Germans and one American, took off from Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris at 4:40 p.m., French time and would have arrived in Queens at approximately 2 p.m., New York time. Moments after the planes takeoff, witnesses said flames were pouring from the planes right engines and was failing to gain proper altitude. With a tremendous roar, the plane rolled over and crashed into a hotel in a suburb of Paris. All 113 passengers and 4 crew members were killed along with 4 people in the hotel. 12 were injured on the ground.
The German tourist group had chartered the flight to New York where they were scheduled to remain until later in the week when they were to pick up a cruise to the Caribbean.
An Air France group of passengers gathered around arrival signs in the airports Terminal One, which is the Air France terminal, but there appeared to be few relatives or friends at the terminal awaiting the arrival of the Concorde passengers.
But a horde of TV crews and reporters from around the world gathered in the Port Authority building to witness a press conference by the vice president and general manager of Air France and the Port Authority where early details of the disaster were given.
The scene at JFK on Tuesday was eerily reminiscent of the atmosphere after the crash of TWA Flight 800 which blew up in 1996 over the ocean off Long Island just minutes after its takeoff enroute to Paris. The cause of that crash, in which all 230 passengers were killed, has never been fully determined but government investigators believe a spark in a fuel tank was the cause. 
The media frenzy and tragic images of relatives and friends at JFK after that crash were again repeated in 1998 after the crash of Swissair Flight 111 in Nova Scotia and again after the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, both of which had taken off from JFK.
The Concorde is one of the worlds few supersonic jets. They are owned by Air France and British Airways. The planes have been flying out of JFK since 1976 and have never had a crash. It had been regarded as a safe and reliable aircraft. It flies 1,350 miles per hour and cruises at 60,000 feet above turbulence, crossing the Atlantic in just under 3-1/2 hours. Thats half the flight time of a normal jumbo jet. The plane is a favorite of celebrities, wealthy businessmen and sports figures, with a round-trip costing $9,000. The aircraft that crashed on Tuesday has flown 1,978 flights, according to Air France officials.
The Concorde SST, with its sleek futuristic design and bird-like nose has become a popular attraction for observers who watch its spectacular takeoffs and landings. But before the SST was granted permission to fly in and out of JFK in 1976, it had become the object of a long series of protests by community residents who feared the planes sonic booms would disturb the surrounding communities and that it would endanger the environment.