Rising from the Ashes

Transcript

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

In the late afternoon of July 25th, 2000, aviation journalist Michel Polacco was in his car driving to his mechanic’s. His phone rang, it was one of his colleagues from the news organization, France Info.

Michel Polacco:

And a journalist of France Info told me, “Concorde crash near Charles de Gaulle at quarter to five PM.” I answer “,bizarre, there is no scheduled flights from Paris for Concorde at this time.” So, he told me, “I call you back.” During this time, I called a friend, pilot of Concorde, called Jean Marcot. He was a very good friend, and I called Jean Marcot and he don't answer and I left a message on his voicemail... And so, I asked him to call me back.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Five minutes later, Michel's phone rang again, but it wasn't Jean Marcot, it was Michel's colleague from France info

Michel Polacco:

And he told me there is really a crash of Concorde. We have the confirmation of the authorities, and it was a flight taking off from Paris to New York and full of passengers and it crash on a hotel just after takeoff.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

And Michel found out that the crashed Concorde had been piloted by his friend, first officer Jean Marcot.

Michel Polacco:

And so, I had left a message on the voice box of a man who just died. And day after day I understood the reality of the accident. And I was very pained.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

As Michel headed to a television studio for a day of emotionally difficult interviews, word of the crash spread around the world. Air France Flight 4590 was carrying 100 passengers, a special charter flight of tourists, mostly from the same small town in Germany. Just two minutes after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport, the plane crashed into a hotel in Gonesse five miles to the west. All the passengers, the nine crew and four people on the ground died while six others were seriously injured. And no one knew why Concorde had gone down in flames. 

On this episode of Making an Impossible Airplane, the Untold Story of Concorde. We will try our best to tell the story of the crash and its aftermath in a way that is truthful and respectful.

It's an unimaginable tragedy for those who lost loved ones. It’s also a dark moment in the lives of the teams who dedicated themselves to keeping Concorde flying safely. Teams that as we'll hear were asked to figure out what went wrong. This is Teamistry, an original podcast from Atlassian makers of collaborative software including Jira, Trello, and Confluence.

Katie John:

I was at work, and I was probably shouldn't have been, but I was looking on the internet.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Concorde Magazine Editor, Katie John.

Katie John:

And somebody said, Concorde's crashed. And I looked on the news websites and just the shock was awful. And then coming home and seeing the crash afterwards was just horrific. You never thought it could happen to Concorde.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Concorde historian Jonathan Glancey also has vivid memories of that day in July 2000.

Jonathan Glancey:

Horrific moment in Concorde's history and in those people's lives. And for me, I just felt this is the end of it. That's the end of a whole era and everything that meant, you know, of the excitement of this adventure into aerospace. And you just felt this is the end for Concorde.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

That idea that this was the end for Concorde turned out not to be true. But this is one of the most pervasive misunderstandings of the Concorde story. The crash wasn't the end. Some would argue it wasn't even a major factor in the eventual end of Concorde. For now, we're going to find out what really happened on that day in July 2000. And as always, we'll stay focused on the teams of people who dedicated most of their careers to this airplane. Here's what former chief design engineer Ted Talbot wrote about the crash.

Ted Talbot:

The feelings of those who designed and built this beautiful aircraft in the knowledge that something they had lovingly created had by a combination of circumstances resulted in the deaths of over 100 people, these feelings cannot be described. It was as though we were part of the families who had suffered this great loss and to whom our sincerest sympathies are extended.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

News outlets at the time reported that the engine had caught fire on takeoff, but no one knew for sure. In fact, people wondered if it might have been a bomb. The French Civil Aviation Authority immediately grounded Concorde. But British Airways kept their fleet in the air well into August.

Aircraft maintenance supervisor Ricky Bastin.

Ricky Bastin:

I think it was something like August the 15th, 2000. We were departing the morning service to New York and the aircraft pushes back and we just waiting for the airplane to go. He comes over the radio that the aircraft is ordered to return to stand because the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK have grounded the airplane. And that was the end of Concorde operations for now.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Concorde couldn't return to the skies until the reasons for the crash were understood. That task partially fell on the shoulders of the people who'd been working to keep Concorde flying. You've already met two of the leaders of that team, Chief Engineers Mike Hall and John Britton. John told me and my producer Pedro that he was vacationing with his family when someone from head office called.

John Britton:

So, I left the wife and the kids in the caravan. I said, I'm off. I jumped in the car and I drove straight back to Felton.

Mike Hall:

John had been contacted and I had been contacted as well. And we were in the boss's office seeing about what we could do to send a team over there immediately to the crash site.

John Britton:

And that was absolutely horrendous because all in our training, our apprenticeship, all those years experience was aimed at keeping aircraft in a good airworthy condition.

Mike Hall:

So it was a terrible impact on the team who'd been working so closely on the aircraft. So yeah, it was an emotionally a very difficult thing, but that just got even more emotional as time went on for the next month because I think we spent a month, or at least certainly I did a month or almost six weeks in Gonesse at the crash scene.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

And when did you head out there?

Mike Hall:

Immediately. I think that afternoon they said to go get some clothes and we headed over there in an aircraft that the company chartered, and John and I went over straight away.

Pedro:

That actually makes me think that you guys, you went from basically the day before you were aviation engineers and now your investigators.

Mike Hall:

Investigators, we're assisting the formal investigators to look at the details of the aircraft because we have the specific knowledge of the airplane, airframe systems, the flying operations and procedures that the accident investigators themselves may not personally have.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

And can you walk me through what you saw when you first went to the crash site?

John Britton:

It's just a mess. There's a bit of the aircraft broke off, the nose broke off and that was separated and that didn't burn, but the rest of it was just burnt.

Mike Hall:

I recall very much the area was still smoldering, still on fire.

John Britton:

We had special kit, boots, overalls, and gloves, and hats, and masks, and things. And when we got back to our hotel, like Mike said earlier, we were out on a crash site for six weeks. And every night when you got back to your hotel, where you took all your crash stuff off at the site and when you got back to your hotel, first thing you did was had a shower. And I don't know whether it was psychological, but that smell in your nose, you could still smell it and I can still smell it now if I think about that, I can still... my brain can remember that it was terrible. 

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Yeah.

John Britton:

It was absolutely terrible.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Wanted to look at the process of piecing together what had happened. So, Mike, you've described that process as extreme teamwork. Do you have any examples of it?

Mike Hall:

It was, one of the first things that we had fortunately was the French officials had the withstanding to go out and photograph the runway. And that was the first thing. They closed the airport that afternoon completely and they took a helicopter, and they flew up and down the runway several times and took photographs and which was a very important for the debris trail and for the soot trail on the runway, which gave us quite a bit of clues. They also sent out teams and they began to pick up debris, all debris, all kinds of debris. They didn't know what it was, they just picked up everything.

John Britton:

And we found this piece of metal. And we found the piece of tire on the runway next to that piece of metal. And as you can see, it's got that same shape as a bit of metal.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

John is showing me two photos. In one, I can see what looks like a metal rule or ruler like you'd use in school, but it's bent and twisted into a sort of capital L shape. It was later confirmed that this had fallen off another airplane before flight 4590 took off. The other photo is of a section of rubber tire and in the middle, it looks like it's been sliced - in the shape of a capital L. As Mike says, this was part of a huge amount of debris from the runway and crash site, all of which could provide vital clues.

Mike Hall:

We started looking at it with several teams, some of the other individuals from the structures and the various areas from Aérospatiale and BAE came over to Toulouse, and begin to assist us in looking at the debris to see if there was any indications of something of the debris. And coupled with that data and the photographs that we had, particularly from this Japanese businessman who was on the flight, we begin to focus quite a bit.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Just to be clear, this photo was taken not from flight 4590, but from another plane on the runway at the time. Also on that plane, French President Jacques Chirac. In fact, as flight 4590 struggled to take off, this other plane could have been hit if not for the Concorde pilot’s attempt to take off.

Can you describe the photo and what we can see in it?

Mike Hall:

Yes. You see the classic signs of Concorde in, if you will, a takeoff mode at high angle of attack. The nose is relatively well up, you see the landing gear extended. But you also see quite a lot of flame coming out from the port just under the port engines, which is the inboard engine just into the landing gear bay. And a rather extensive amount of fire indicating that there was a significant fuel leak at the very least on the aircraft.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

That famous photo, which you might have seen, is truly horrible. Concorde looking so elegant as it's taking off, but trailing this long stream of flame behind it. So it was clear to John and Mike and others that a fuel leak was the cause of the fire, not the engines. But what had caused the fuel leak and what had sparked it into flame?

John Britton:

And we, on the site, we could identify bits of the aircraft that the authorities wouldn't recognize.

Mike Hall:

They had found this panel about the size of a sheet of A4 paper in the runway debris. And that began to open up many, many aspects of the actual event. This particular piece here.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Mike is showing me a picture of a 30 by 30 centimeter panel of torn black material and it's got the ribbing from the inside of the fuel tanks. It's clearly a small piece of Concorde's wing.

John Britton:

But we couldn't understand why it appears to have been blown out and not hit in.

Mike Hall:

And of course, we then begin to look into the mechanics of why do we have this piece on the runway laying there? Why isn't it an impact hole punched up into the aircraft and therefore lost to the investigation? And there was a whole big scientific investigation about hydrodynamic effects of impacting fuel tanks with high-speed objects and some of pieces of tire debris.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

They were starting to theorize what may have happened, the tire hitting the piece of metal, a piece of tire hitting the wing, which was also a fuel tank. But John explains the frustration they constantly encountered when trying to sift through evidence. That's because at the time the crash zone was considered a crime scene, so it was controlled by the French police, known as the gendarmerie.

John Britton:

I don't know whether you know the French system, but as soon as you have any type of accident or incident that could result in a court case, the French judiciary appoints a judge, right? And the judge takes charge of the crime scene. And what they did, they brought in loads of gendarmes, and they were all over the site. When we found anything of interest, we'd look at it and we'd say, "Oh, look at this over here." And then they would grab it. They'd have plastic bags, right? For instance, the panel that blew out on a runway and those sort of. They'd put it in a plastic bag, and they seal it up. And the judge had a hanger at Le Borge where he was putting anything that could be evidence. So instead of the crash investigators being able to look at things and investigate them, they were locked in the judge's hanger. And all we could do is go and look at it through a plastic bag. And then after a while, the inside the plastic bag, it gets scratched and whatever, you couldn't see anything. And some of the bits would sit in there. That panel was sat in there for weeks and weeks and we weren't allowed. We wanted to get it analyzed to see what the fracture surfaces were, whether it had been blown in or blown out or whatever. And we weren't allowed to. So, it really hampered the speed of the investigation. So, it was very frustrating for us. So after a while, what we did, somebody, we'd spot something and we'd say, here that looks interesting there, Mike or whatever. Yeah, okay. Right. And somebody say, "Oh, look at this over here." And then the gendarmes would go over there and then we'd say "ok, right". Get that bit of evidence. Take some pictures of it, whatever...

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Before it would end up in a bag.

John Britton:

Yeah. We had to divert the gendarmes away while we did a bit of investigation.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

I've mentioned this before, John's ability to be lighthearted about even really heavy stuff. Again, that's probably just how we Brits deal with traumatic things. My producer Pedro, though, he wears his heart on his sleeve. He spent a lot of this interview on the verge of tears.

Pedro Mendes:

I'm thinking about the impact on you individually, your team members. I mean, in a way I can almost imagine that at least you have something you can do. You can contribute. You're there, you're trying to... you know what if you sat back here being like powerless, you're there doing it. But still...

John Britton:

This is like Poirot, right? Agatha Christie, the detective story, right that's what we were doing. We weren't doing our normal job of keeping the aircraft safe and airworthy. We were part of an investigating team doing detective work. And all the time, for instance, that information that you read in there from a flight deck recorder and from a crash recorder. This information was being downloaded and fed back. And like Mike says, we were having meetings where you exchange every day you have meetings with the authorities and they say, well, we've got this information which has come available. And we were looking at it. And then you had people back at base doing things and we were feeding stuff back in and saying, "Oh, well how could those fuel tanks have been full up? Oh, well, we found on the flight deck that the transfer switches were pumping fuel back." So, it is a condition that could have occurred, which was previously unknown.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

The entire tragedy from when flight 4590 began moving down the runway until it crashed, lasted just 126 seconds. The first 40 seconds were relatively uneventful with the plane throttling up the engines and nearing takeoff speed, and then a tire hit a piece of metal on the runway. 

Pedro and I are at Aerospace Bristol with John Britton, and we're in the main hall with British Airways Concorde, BOAF. John's going to tell us the story of what they were able to piece together from their weeks of investigation. But before he does, he's a bit of Concorde anatomy. Concorde has a total of four engines, two under each wing. Engines, one and two under the left wing, and engines three and four under the right. Each pair is inside the rectangular power plant casing. Up against the power plants are the landing gear, a set of four tires under each wing. And remember what we learned in an earlier episode that pretty much the entire underside of each wing is covered in fuel tanks, right next to the power plants and the landing gear. 

Could you describe the damage that plane suffered before the crash?

John Britton:

Okay. Well, if we walk over to the main landing gear under…

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

So, we're looking-

John Britton:

Here's the left landing gear. It was the number two on a forward one.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

So, it was the front, right?

John Britton:

Yes.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Front right tire.

John Britton:

Yeah.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

On the left landing gear.

John Britton:

Yes.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Okay.

John Britton:

Right. So, when the aircraft ran over this hot metal strip, and it was this sharp piece of... I think it's titanium is about the size of a 12-inch steel rule. And it was cranked, so it was stood up on the runway and this tire went over it and it cut through and that caused the tire to burst.

Pedro Mendes:

So, what happened after the tire burst, after it cut?

John Britton:

Right. So, a piece of tire came off and it flew up. Now bearing in mind that the wheel is going around, the aircraft is going along at 200 odd miles an hour. So, the wheel is rotating rapidly, and it flew off and it hit the bottom wing skin. Now the next problem is that, I mean, none of these accidents are caused by one thing. They're always a series of things which add up on the day. And over to here, there's a refueling panel.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

It's a large rectangular panel labeled ‘refueling access.’ There's something else you need to know about this situation. At Charles de Gaulle airport, there's quite a long way for the plane to taxi from the gate until takeoff, and that requires more fuel.

John Britton:

And what crews are allowed to do. The flight engineer, if he's got a long taxi out from the stand to the takeoff point, he can override the high-level cutoff and put extra fuel into the tanks. And on this day, that's what the crew decided to do. So, his wing tanks were absolutely full. No airspace. Normally there's an air gap in the top. So, when that great chunk of tire hit the wing skin, the shockwave went through the fuel. It caused the fuel inside the tank to pressurize because it had no expansion capability.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

In other words, because there wasn't an air pocket inside the fuel tank when it was struck, the force had nowhere to go but out.

John Britton:

And what that did, it caused the weakest part of the tank to fail. And that is what blew out the 30 by 30-centimeter square. And the fuel streamed out, 60 liters per second coming out of that big hole. And we also think a bit of the tire hit some of the electrics, and maybe caused electric cable failure, which caused the spark. And that's what ignited and caused the fire.

Pedro Mendes:

Oh my God.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

The pilots had so many crises to deal with at once. Engine one wasn't working, probably damaged by the debris. Engine two had been shut off because they thought it was on fire. So that means they don't have enough power to lift off properly. And then trying to avoid another airplane, the one the French President was on, and also trying to avoid populated areas near the airport. The crash was inevitable.

Ricky Bastin:

Devastated. Devastated. We felt bad for the airplane, bad for Air France obviously mortified to think these, all these bereaved folks, 113 people died in that crash. And these are families torn apart.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

That's Ricky Bastin again, who at the time of the crash looked after maintenance for the British Airways Concorde fleet. So, you can imagine the emotional impact it had on team members.

John Britton:

Because our training, our life in the airspace industry. Our whole training is about keeping the aircraft in a really good airworthy condition. That is our whole focus. Now, this is a situation that we were not trained for. We were thrown in and we were not used to this situation at all. And it had a great impact on my health. And bearing in mind that we were out on the crash site for six weeks and then we were working on the modifications to get approval, sort out what modifications we needed to put in negotiating it with the authorities, doing the tests.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

As physically difficult and emotionally painful as it was to piece together what caused the crash of flight 4590. I think there was one small comfort for the Concorde teams: The crash was the result of a myriad of decisions and conditions, not one single fault. 

Now that the teams looking after the Concorde fleets knew the details of the crash, work could begin on modifications. The French focused on installing Kevlar liners in the fuel tanks to offer more protection against punctures. We mentioned in the last episode that the relationship between the French and British teams didn't have the same geniality that had existed back in the 60s and 70s. 

Well, unfortunately, when there's a crisis, there's a tendency to lay blame. And so, instead of staying connected where there were split responsibilities, like it used to be, there was now serious conflict.

John Britton:

The French were responsible for the wing design and the part that failed was the winging structure. It was hit by a piece of tire. And immediately they said, "Oh, we're we're going to put Kevlar liners in." And there, they launched in their design office, a massive design program to make these liners, to go all over the bottom of the wing. And then later on we did a test specimen where we did a failure equivalent to what had failed in the actual Concorde crash. And we found that the leak rate, even with the liners in place, was much higher than could be accepted. And I had to go back to the French and say, "I'm afraid your liners don't work." And there was a massive row where their lawyers accused me of not wanting to get the aircraft back into service. I went to my director and handed him my resignation. He refused. He went to the director in Toulouse, and they went down through.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

But how did that... in terms of you guys working together, what was that like?

John Britton:

It was not good.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Yeah.

John Britton:

Their chief engineer came back and said, "Oh no, we didn't. We didn't mean that. No, the lawyers got the wrong end of the stick. We didn't really say that.” There was a massive row and we had to go and do something different.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

So, just to be clear, even though John’s team wasn’t convinced by the Kevlar liners, they did reduce the leak rate from 60 litres a second to half a litre per second. So they were adopted. Meanwhile, the Brits did was focus focused on reinforcing the landing gear. But the wheels remained a concern, as and the wheels instead. Ricky Bastin explains.

Ricky Bastin:

The original tires from Concorde. They were fairly early tire technology because of the takeoff speed and weight they had were very high pressure. They're high-pressure tires and they went through a lot of stress. And we did get problems with tires blowing. It was a fact of life.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

But just when it was needed, a solution arrived, thanks to the teams working in France.

Ricky Bastin:

The Michelin NZG tire.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

That stands for ‘near zero growth.’ These tires, which Airbus had been developing with Michelin for their airliner the A380, were first introduced on Concorde. Zero growth because they don't expand as much as regular tire rubber when inflated so that if punctured, they wouldn't burst. They were also constructed of a new reinforced material that could handle much heavier loads.

John Britton:

And that became the solution that got the aircraft back into service.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

As much as the tires were a breakthrough, returning to service wasn't a quick or simple process. Concorde aircraft, from both British Airways and Air France, had to be fitted with fuel tank liners, new tires, and reinforced landing gear cables. 

So the Concorde teams who'd kept the plane in the air for decades, now had to face a new challenge – conducting grueling tests to assess these modifications. All to restore Concorde's airworthiness certification.

John Britton:

So, all this testing, everything was going on. It was a very stressful, we were having meetings, high level meetings where there are political decisions being taken. A lot of pressure from British Airways to get the aircraft back into service. And one day I felt really ill. I phoned my boss. I said to Robin, I said, "I really feel ill." I said, "I can't come in today." And he said, "Well, go to the doctor." And I went to the doctor and my blood pressure was 200 over 100.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Wow. Wow.

John Britton:

And so...

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Blood pressure levels like that can lead to strokes, heart attacks, or other life-threatening health problems.

John Britton:

They put me on strong beta blockers and things and signed me off, so I couldn't go into the office for some time. So, the team were carrying on. So, it took a toll, I'm sure not only on me, but a lot of the people that were involved with this accident and the repercussions and the returns to service.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

The teams that worked on Concorde had been through a lot, some of them all the way back to the prototypes of the 1970s. But nothing compared to this stress and anxiety. And yet, the desire to see Concorde return to the skies propelled them forward. Then, in late summer of 2001, it was finally time for proper test flights. The first - with no passengers - had been a success, but what Ricky Bastin really remembers was the dress rehearsal for returning to service. The first fully loaded Concorde to fly after the plane had been grounded in 2000.

Ricky Bastin:

Oh boy, I'll never forget that. It was something we've been looking forward to. Because I'd done the first test flight after the Paris crash, and that was an absolute breeze. But this one was special because there were 100 passengers, but every passenger was either a Concorde pilot or an engineer. We had full cabin service, including champagne. They didn't give us the good vintage stuff, but to keep it authentic, we still had champagne. There were bags loaded just so the baggage teams could get back into the routine of loading Concorde. We flew out halfway to New York and then gradually turned back to Heathrow and I'd wander up to the flight deck many times during the flight, have a chat with the guys, and it was a feeling of total elation and the airplane behaved perfectly. There was nothing wrong with her at all.

And we do our approach in the Heathrow as we landed, everybody cheered. Everybody cheered. As we landed, we taxi back to the gate and everyone's getting off the airplane high fiving everyone. And I'm stood by the passenger door. I was one of the last to get off, and I was talking to Mike Bannister, who was the captain of the airplane. And I had my cell phone in my top pocket, and I picked the cell phone up and it's my youngest son, Daniel. I said, "Hi Daniel. We just landed fantastic. We have no idea." He said “Dad, shut up. Listen. An airplane’s hit one of the Twin Towers, and we just heard the other tower's been hit with an airplane as well. And there's absolutely devastation in New York.” And my jaw drops.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

That's right. Concorde's first fully loaded test flight was on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Katie John.

Katie John:

The shock of 9/11 in which the aviation industry as a whole took a massive hit. I mean, I think some airlines actually went out of business and even airlines like British Airways thought they were looking down a black hole that they thought they themselves were going to be going out of business within the year. And then when 9/11 happened, about 40 of the people who died in the Twin Towers were actually regular customers of Concorde.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

The impact of 9/11 was far-ranging, of course, but I never knew until now that it intersected with Concorde's history. Firstly, the attack happened exactly as Concorde was attempting to return to service. But more than that, just as Concorde's teams needed to restore people's faith in its safety, people around the world became wary of air travel for fear of terrorism. 

And then there's the direct effect on Concorde and the actual regular customers killed, as Katie said, which is significant because about 80% of passengers were repeat flyers. Remember, Concorde really only had two profitable routes, between New York and London or New York and Paris. With all their financial eggs in this one basket, the future was precarious. But at least for now, there was a future for Concorde.

Many people still believe that the crash in Gonesse is what ended Concorde probably because that news was so much more dramatic and well covered than the return to service. But on November 7th, 2001, regular flights were restored between Europe and New York. What many people don't know is that 9/11 was a much more significant factor in Concorde's demise. Business travel simply did not return to its previous numbers. And all the while Concorde's operating costs just kept skyrocketing. Ricky Bastin.

Ricky Bastin:

There's no point pretending the engineering costs weren't high, they were. She needed probably three times the amount of manpower.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

The finances of Concorde threatened its existence once again, despite the triumphant return to the skies and despite the work of teams behind the scenes confident that the big white bird could keep flying.

Ricky Bastin:

We were looking at modifications to be done to extend the life of the aircraft even further. And then further than that. She could have kept going for a long time, certainly another 10 years, certainly another 10 years.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

Next time, Concorde is grounded for the last time good. We hear about its lasting legacy on the airline industry and in people's lives. And we find out if supersonic passenger travel might soon return to our skies.

Dudley Collard:

I think I sat about, about here on the last flight of the airplane.

Mike Hall:

I was one of those lucky people who got to hear the very last shutdown on the Olympus 593 engine.

Ricky Bastin:

It was an absolute bombshell when this announcement was made.

Jonathan Glancey:

It was just the emotion sinking in, very quietly, that this was the end of something that's from a child you had absolutely adored. And now it was gone.

Katie John:

Ever since Concorde retired, we've been hearing yes, the next generation is only five years away. Five years away. Five years away.

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far:

That's next time on the final episode of Making an Impossible Airplane, the Untold story of Concorde on Teamistry, an original podcast from Atlassian.