On this day in 1973, Concorde made its first non-stop transatlantic flight with passengers, from Washington to Paris. The supersonic aircraft completed the crossing in just over three and a half hours, flying at twice the speed of sound for approximately two-thirds of the flight time.
Concorde’s maiden commercial flight was on 21 January 1976 and it flew regularly from London Heathrow and Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport to New York and Washington. Flights from London to New York took just three and a half hours compared to eight hours flight time on subsonic planes.
In 1986, Concorde flew around the world covering 28,238 miles in just 29 hours and 59 minutes. However on 25 July 2000, Concorde crashed into a hotel in Gonesse, France, killing all passengers and crew, as well as four bystanders. It was the only fatal accident and the aircraft was retired three years later with the last commercial journey made on 24 October 2003 from New York to London.
