France marked the first anniversary of the Concorde crash which killed 113 people with a minute's silence at Air France headquarters at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, the unveiling of a memorial plaque on the site of the catastrophe in Gonesse and an ecumenical service at Saint-Sulpice church.
Bells tolled before the service in central Paris, where Mozart's Requiem Mass was performed. Although the grief of the families remains, the mood in official circles is satisfaction that the disaster was dealt with efficiently.
An investigation by 80 researchers from the Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) has been completed in time, and 730 relatives of the victims have already received $100 million in compensation.
Conclusions issued this week blamed a 43-centimetre metal strip which fell from a US Continental Airlines DC-10. It pierced a tyre in the Concorde's landing gear, pieces of which were projected into a fuel tank in the wing.
Five Air France and seven British Airways Concordes will resume flights this autumn, equipped with newly designed radial tyres similar to those on military aircraft. The fuel tanks inside Concorde's delta wings will be lined with kevlar, the substance used to make bullet-proof vests.
France suspended Concorde flights the day after the crash. British Airways followed suit on August 15th. Many thought the Concorde would never fly again. "I am confident and optimistic on the future of the aircraft," the French Transport Minister, Mr Jean-Claude Gayssot, said.
The Concorde crashed into the Hotelissimo, which was owned by Ms Michelle Fricheteau. She was severely burned in the disaster and has just returned from Poland, where she visited the families of Eva and Paulina, two of the four chamber maids who were killed.
"There are two feelings," she said. "The feeling of responsibility towards everyone who worked in my hotel, and the feeling of guilt at being alive when the others perished."
Derek Scally reports from Berlin: A lawyer for the relatives of the 97 Germans killed in the crash said Air France began paying compensation last Thursday.
For the first time in a German compensation process, recipients were paid for the psychological effects of the crash.
