"Continental Outraged Over Report Of Concorde Crash Probe"

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

Continental 'outraged' over possible Concorde crash charges
The Associated Press 


PARIS -- Continental Airlines Inc. said Wednesday it was "outraged" at
reports that French authorities want to prosecute the airline and several
employees over the Concorde crash that killed 113 people in Paris four years
ago. 

The airline issued a strongly worded statement after a French newspaper
reported that investigating judge Christophe Regnard had summoned several
Continental officials for interrogation and plans to place them under formal
investigation along with the company. 

"We strongly disagree that anything Continental did was the cause of the
Concorde accident, and we are outraged by the media reports that criminal
charges may have been made against our company and its employees," the
airline said. 

Continental said it had no independent confirmation of the charges reported
in French daily newspaper Le Parisien, which did not cite sources. 

The French justice ministry and the prosecutor's office handling the case
declined to comment. 

The newspaper said other companies or individuals were also likely to face
prosecution over the accident on July 25, 2000, when a Concorde plane
crashed in flames onto a hotel shortly after taking off from Paris Charles
de Gaulle airport, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground. 

An investigation by France's Accident Investigations Bureau concluded almost
three years ago that the accident was caused by a badly installed titanium
"wear strip" that had fallen off the engine housing of a Continental
Airlines Boeing DC-10 that took off from the same runway minutes earlier. 

The metal bar caused a Concorde tire to burst, the report said, propelling
rubber debris into the supersonic plane's fuel tanks. 

Le Parisien did not name any of the Continental employees it said would be
summoned by Regnard, who is heading a manslaughter probe into the disaster. 

In its statement, the airline said it was "confident that there is no basis
for a criminal action" against the company. "We will defend any charges in
the appropriate courts," it said.


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