Vincent,
It was not the crash of Air France 4590 that ruined the career of Concorde, it contributed, but Concorde was set to survive that tragic accident on both sides of the Channel.
It was in fact 9-11 that sealed its fate. Many of the regular passengers that flew Concorde with both BA & AF almost daily were killed when the twin towers collapsed and the majority of its PAX were affluent Americans many of whom stopped flying after 9-11. You only have to look at the state of the US airline industry to see what an affect this event had. Many of the major US airlines are or have been in Chapter 11 bankrupcy protection the others have had to make major changes to their operations and have had to swallow major losses. Even operators like KLM, DLH, Af and BA have suffered greatly at the hands of a minority of small minded individuals who call themselves Al-Quaida. Not only did we senselesy lose so many lives on that day, we lost two of the worlds greatest feats of engineering both from the 1970's... The World Trade Center and Concorde.
