Safety experts find no problems with Concorde before takeoff

Air safety experts have not established "anything worrying" about the Air France Concorde before it began its takeoff only to…

Air safety experts have not established "anything worrying" about the Air France Concorde before it began its takeoff only to crash minutes later, the head of France's Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) said yesterday.

Mr Paul-Louis Arslanian said the BEA "had not identified anything worrying before the departure of the plane".

The Concorde crashed last Tuesday after taking off from Paris's Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, killing all 109 people aboard and four on the ground. The French air transport police, who are conducting the judicial inquiry into the disaster, , said the death toll had fallen back from 114 to 113 because of confusion over body parts.

International aviation experts met in Paris yesterday to discuss additional safety measures in the wake of the tragedy.

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Meanwhile, British Airways insisted it would press on with Concorde services despite three incidents over the weekend.

Late on Sunday, a BA Concorde heading from London to New York was diverted to a Canadian airport after the captain noticed a smell of fuel. It was grounded at Gander, Newfoundland, as "a purely precautionary measure", a spokeswoman said. "We still don't know what the smell was."

A "refuelling problem" prevented another BA Concorde taking off on Sunday to New York. On Saturday, a mixture of fuel and air in the engine of a Concorde flying from New York to London caused an alarming loud bang inside the plane, "something like an engine backfiring."

A BA spokeswoman said there was "nothing to suggest" passenger numbers had fallen since the Paris crash. On Friday all seats on the morning flight from Heathrow were taken.