World

Concorde Has Good Safety Record

July 25, 2000 / 1:22 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Until Tuesday's crash of an Air France jet outside of Paris, the Concorde SST had been considered among the world's safest planes.

The supersonic jet flies above turbulence at nearly 60,000 feet and at a speed of more than 1,300 miles per hour. It can jet across the Atlantic in just over three hours, less than half the flight time of regular jetliners.

Flight AF4590

Complete coverage from CBSnews.com:

Concorde Pilot Reported Engine Trouble

Eyewitness: Like 'A Tiny Atomic Bomb'

French Town: Grateful Toll Wasn't Worse

Germany 'Shaken' By Concorde Tragedy

Luxury Holiday Turns Into Tragedy

Concorde Flies Again

Pilots Vouch For Concorde Safety

A Future Barrier For Concorde

'Microcracks' Ground A Concorde

The plane had its first test flight in 1969, and its first commercial flight on Jan. 21, 1976. Thirteen of the needle-nosed supersonic jets are currently operated by Air France and British Airways. Air France officials have said in the past that their current fleet is fit to fly safely until 2007.

Passengers travel in noiseless luxury. They sip champagne, dine on gourmet food and enjoy every imaginable convenience -- except movies. When the plane was conceived, a video system was judged to be too heavy.

The plane's only real scare came in 1979, when a bad landing blew out a Concorde's tires, leading to a design modification for the plane.

Nonetheless, the fleet is aging. The planes' average age is more than 23 years. On Monday, British Airways grounded one of its Concordes after small cracks spotted on its wings grew larger.

Some view the plane as a technological dead-end, possibly the last supersonic passenger jet, rather than the first.

Last fall, Boeing Co. withdrew from a research group studying a new supersonic passenger jet because of the daunting cost of developing a replacement.

"There's no second-generation Concorde on the drawing board anywhere in Europe,'' Henri Perrier, chief engineer on the aircraft's maiden flight in 1969, said last year. "It's an expensive project requiring at least 15 years f work."

A roundtrip Paris-New York ticket costs $9,000, roughly 25 percent more than regular first class. A London-New York roundtrip runs $9,850. The flights are very popular with celebrities, world-class athletes and the wealthy.