Il Concorde, tra mito e tragedia (2020) | Documentario integrale | ARTE.tv Documentari

Video from the channel ARTE․tv Documentari about Concorde, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 52:04. Language: German. Video type: Documentary.

A 2020 ARTE documentary, in German, that traces the history of the Concorde from its conception to its retirement and links it to the accident of 25 July 2000 in Paris. It alternates archive footage with testimonies from pilots, crew, controllers, victims' relatives and staff of the Technik Museum Sinsheim, which holds an Air France Concorde alongside a Tu-144.

The story begins with the sound barrier, broken in October 1947 by Chuck Yeager in the Bell X-1, and with the British Fairey Delta 2, whose delta wing inspired the Concorde's shape. In June 1962 France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty obliging both to build the aircraft with no possibility of abandoning the programme; André Turcat and Brian Trubshaw led the test teams. The Soviet Union got there first with the Tu-144, which flew on 31 December 1968, while prototype 001 took off in Toulouse on 2 March 1969 on a 27-minute flight. After a sales tour with dozens of purchase options, the 1973 oil crisis and pressure from the American industry caused them to fall away, and only Air France and British Airways operated the aircraft.

Flight 4590 took off from Charles de Gaulle at 16:42; a metal fragment that had fallen from a Continental Airlines DC-10 burst a tyre, and a piece of rubber punctured a tank, triggering the fire. 100 passengers and nine crew died, along with people in a hotel; many victims were from Mönchengladbach. After investing more than 200 million euros in upgrades, the aircraft was retired three years later. The documentary closes with the transfer of one example to Sinsheim by Rhine barge and motorway, and with supersonic projects such as NASA's X-59, Boom, Aerion and the DLR's SpaceLiner.