The British Airways' Concorde engine problem, which forced a plane to return to London today, had no parallels with the fatal Air France Concorde crash two years ago, aviation experts said.
The BA Concorde with 50 passengers on board returned safely to Heathrow following a mid-Atlantic engine failure.
The experts said BA engineers would be anxious to find out the mechanical problem which led to engine failure at 58,000 feet.
"This was something that pilots can easily handle and no doubt the plane could have gone on to New York if necessary," said Mr Kieran Daly, editor of Internet news service Air Transport Intelligence.
"Fortunately, there are no comparisons with what happened in the French crash in 2000. But the question remains as to what was the problem with the engine in the latest incident," he said.
The plane, which was travelling at 1,300kph, on a scheduled flight to New York. The pilot turned the plane round and flew back to Heathrow on three engines.
Air France and British Airways resumed supersonic transatlantic flights to New York last November. The flights had been grounded following the crash of an Air France Concorde near Paris in July 2000 that killed 113 people.
PA