On the flight deck were Chief Pilot Captain Mike Bannister, Captain Les Brodie, and Captain Paul Douglas. Also on board were Senior Flight Engineers Warren Hazleby and Trevor Norcott. The flight ferried 100 British Airways employees.
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The plane was grounded after an accident shortly after takeoff in July of 2000 that killed all 109 people on board and four people on the ground. The official investigation blamed a titanium strip that fell from a Continental plane minutes earlier.
It was just one minute 17 seconds after its pilot was told the plane was on fire. According to a report by the Mirror, Captain Christian Marty's last words on July 25, 2000, were: Too late...no time. The co-pilot was then heard to say: Le Bourget, Le Bourget.
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.
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.
British Airways and Air France were the only two airlines who operated the aircraft. It's said that during the aircraft's 27 years of service, there were more qualified American astronauts than there were British Airways Concorde pilots.
BA never suffered a serious accident with its seven strong fleet. Concorde service was profitable by the late 1980s and if not for the economic downturn and Air France Concorde crash of 2000, may have survived to this day.
Technical, financial, and regulatory hurdles make a return to the skies extremely unlikely. Concorde is an aircraft that captures the imagination and is instantly recognizable even to non-aviation fanatics.
Flying at this altitude not only helped save on fuel but also helped the jet save significant amounts of time, as at 60,000 feet, there were almost no jets that air traffic control would route Concordes around. The only aircraft flying beside the supersonic transport were either military aircraft or other Concordes.
Boom Supersonic, the US plane manufacturer, plans to have the answer with its new Overture jet, which is set to transport customers at twice the speed of today's fastest commercial aircraft, and is regarded as the new Concorde.
Concorde is sadly no longer flying, but it is still possible to visit some of the remaining 18 airframes, there are others not open to the public but you can still see them.