On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590 crashed shortly after take-off with all 109 occupants and four on the ground killed. This was the only fatal incident involving Concorde; commercial service was suspended until November 2001.
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Such speed didn't come cheap, though: A transatlantic flight required the high-maintenance aircraft to gulp jet fuel at the rate of one ton per seat, and the average round-trip price was $12,000.
The aircraft quickly proved itself unquestionably as it reached speeds of up to 1,354 mph. To put that into context, that is around 800 mph faster than a Boeing 747 and over 350 mph faster than the earth spins on its axis!
Both Continental Airlines and John Taylor, one of its mechanics, were found criminally responsible for their part in the disaster in December 2010, but their convictions were overturned in a French court in 2012, on the grounds that the mistakes that they made did not amount to criminal responsibility.
Concorde used the most powerful pure jet engines flying commercially. The Aircraft's four engines took advantage of what is known as 'reheat' technology, adding fuel to the final stage of the engine, which produced the extra power required for take-off and the transition to supersonic flight.
Concorde was also popular with the Queen and celebrities. Joan Collins travelled with the aircraft so frequently that she became something of an ambassador for the service. Other notable passengers included Elton John, Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and Sean Connery.
Overtures toward commercial supersonic flightOverture will be a successor to the last commercial supersonic aircraft, the Concorde, which operated between 1969 and 2003.
Fred Finn, is the worlds most-travelled man, and with a world record that no one can ever beat – the world's most-travelled Concorde passenger! Fred Finn was on the first and last Concorde flights and holds the Guinness World Record for the most Concorde flights as a passenger!
Of its final, celeb-studded passenger flight, CNN's Quest says: It didn't matter how famous you were, the star was the plane. Faster than a speeding bullet: 20 years after it last flew, Concorde remains unsurpassed in terms of speed in the world of commercial flight.