On July 25th, 2000, Concorde suffers its worst nightmare. Minutes after take off, an Air France flight crashes into a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all passengers and crew. It’s now up to the team of engineers to study the aftermath and piece together the final moments of the aircraft. They hope to explain the cause to the world and restore faith in supersonic flight.
In the late afternoon of July 25, 2000, aviation journalist Michel Polico was in his car driving to his mechanics.
His phone rang.
It was one of his colleagues from the news organization France Info.
And a journalist of Franc info told me a Concord crash near Charles de Gaulle at quarter to 05:00 p.m.
i answered.
Bizarre.
There is no scheduled flight from Paris for Concord at this time.
So he told me, I call you back.
During this time I called a friend, pilot of Concord called Jean Marco.
He was a very good friend.
And I called Jean Marco and he didn't answer.
And I left the message and his voicemail Jean Je Tapelle.
And so I asked him to call me back.
Five minutes later, Michel's phone rang again.
But it wasn't Jean Marco, it was Michel's colleague from France.
Enfo can told me there is really a crash of Concord.
We have the confirmation of the authorities and it was a flight taking off from Paris to New York and full of passengers.
And the crash on an hotel just after takeoff.
And Michel found out that the crash, Concorde, had been piloted by his friend, first officer Jean Marco.
And so I had, I left a message on the voice box of a man who just died.