It’s been 12 years now since Air France Flight 4590 took off from Charles De Gaulle for what proved to be its final flight. The Concorde ripped a hot chunk of rubber out of a tire (after running over some titanium debris left by a Continental DC-10 that took off before it), and flung it at itself. Spurting flames by the time it left the runway, there was little time to attempt a remedy — like landing at the nearby Le Bourget airport — before crashing into a hotel, taking the lives of all 109 passengers and crew, plus four on the ground. The passengers were mostly German tourists on their way to New York for a cruise.
Read the rest over at Motherboard.
