Story ID: 
Airline To Stand Trial for Manslaughter
By: Jennifer Harrington
Caption: A French judge last month ordered Continental Airlines and five people–including aircraft designers, maintenance technicians and one civil aviation authori
Word Count: 117
A French judge last month ordered Continental Airlines and five people–including aircraft designers, maintenance technicians and one civil aviation authority executive–to stand trial for manslaughter in the criminal investigation into the Concorde crash that killed 113 in July 2000 near Paris. The airline is being charged with negligence in DC-10 maintenance, and a Continental mechanic is accused of improperly installing a titanium strip that subsequently fell onto the runway at Charles de Gaulle airport, which triggered the fatal chain of events. The mechanic’s supervisor, two high-ranking officials at Aerospatiale (now EADS) involved in the supersonic airliner’s design and flight tests, and a former director general of the French civil aviation authority have also been charged.