France suspends Air France Concordes

Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot had asked the DGAC and other experts to draw up additional safety measures that would allow the flag carrier to resume operations with its five remaining Concordes, grounded since last Tuesday’s accident.

The DGAC spokesman said earlier that technical experts had not been able to draft such measures, given that accident investigators were so far unable to establish the chain of events that led the supersonic airliner to crash in flames.

All 109 people on board and four on the ground were killed when the Concorde crashed in flames within two minutes of take off on a flight from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport to New York and plunged into a hotel in the town of Gonesse.

Most of the dead from the crash, the first of a Concorde in more than 20 years of service, were German tourists.

French investigators have established that one, or possibly two, of the plane’s tyres had burst, that there was intense fire probably caused by a major fuel leak and that there were problems with the landing gear and two of the four engines.

But Alain Monnier, head of a commission of inquiry appointed by Gayssot, said on Monday that the link between those elements remained unclear.

"For the moment, we don’t know how to construct the slightest scenario for linking these phenomena to each other," he said.

Monnier’s commission is assisting the official French Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) in the technical probe. The DGAC announcement was a blow to Air France, which has been under pressure get its Concordes flying again.

The world’s only other Concorde operator British Airways resumed its flights within 24 hours of the accident. British Airways has insisted that its Concordes are safe, but on Sunday it suffered two embarrassing problems with the distinctive, needle-nosed aircraft.

One Concorde flying from London to New York had to divert to Gander, New Foundland after the crew smelled fuel in the cabin, while a second plane was grounded in London due to a refuelling fault.

British Airways said on Monday it had found no evidence of a fuel leak in the plane diverted to Gander and had flown the aircraft to London for further examination.