Concorde takes off into thick fog over Paris

AN AIR FRANCE Concorde took off in thick fog over Paris today for the first time since the airline suspended flights after the crash which killed 113 people.

With visibility down to less than 50 metres, crowds only heard the thunder of the jet engines as the plane glided gracefully from the runway.

The jet was flown at subsonic speed from Charles de Gaulle to the Istres airforce base near Marseille where it will undergo two weeks of ground tests.

Today's takeoff was poignant for residents of the airport dormitory town of Gonesse, where Air France flight AF4590 ploughed into the hotel Hotelissimo on 25 July last year.

As the plane soared over their homes, locals heard for the first time in six months the familiar roar of Concorde 500 metres overhead but caught only a fleeting glimpse.

The hotel, devastated by the crash which killed all 109 people on board and four on the ground - has still not been rebuilt, and the deep, blackened scar on the landscape where it once stood serves as a bitter reminder of the town's position under the flightpath.

The jet, which left Paris today at 11.30 our time, is the Air France Concorde number F-BVFB. The one-off flight was organised by European Air and Defence Systems, which was granted exceptional permission to fly the plane by the French civil aviation authority.

It made the 600-mile journey in just over an hour, with French pilot Edgard Chillaud, a co-pilot and an in-flight engineer the only three people on board.

At the airbase, engineers will carry out tests to simulate fuel leaks on the underside of the aircraft. The crash happened after a shard of metal on the runway from a DC-10 punctured the Concorde's tyre, throwing up debris and piercing the fuel tank. But it is still not known why so much fuel escaped and what caused it to ignite so quickly.

British Airways and Air France are to line the fuel tanks on their 12 remaining Concordes - five French and seven British - with Kevlar, the material used in bullet-proof vests, to prevent rupture from debris. BA hopes one of its Concordes will be able to undergo test flights within eight to 10 weeks, paving the way for both fleets to be back in passenger service by spring.

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