Concorde supersonic jet to have its nose repaired at New York museum

A museum official says a two-week nose job should reverse the damage done to a Concorde supersonic jet when a truck rammed it.

Photo: Concorde supersonic jet to have its nose repaired at New York museum

The retired Concorde is normally on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. It has been at a Brooklyn recreational facility while the USS Intrepid and its home pier in Manhattan are repaired and renovated.

A truck hauling equipment from a Jamaican soccer-and-cricket festival bumped into the Concorde's distinctive nose July 1 and knocked it off.

Museum President Bill White says the cone will be reattached and repaired to original standards.

White said Tuesday the museum apologized to the jet's owner British Airways for not providing better security for the plane.

Concorde was a supersonic passenger airliner or supersonic transport (SST). It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation. With only 20 aircraft ultimately built, the costly development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy the aircraft. The Concorde was the more successful of the only two supersonic airliners to have ever operated commercially, the Tupolev Tu-144 being the other. The Tu-144 was also the only faster commercial airliner, surpassing the Concorde by 100 mph (~160.9 km/h).

First flown in 1969, Concorde service commenced in 1976 and continued for 27 years. It flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, flying these routes at record speeds, in under half the time of other airliners. Concorde also set many other records, including the official FAI "Westbound Around The World" and "Eastbound Around the World" world air speed records.

As a result of the type's only crash on 25 July 2000, world economic effects arising from the 9/11 attacks, and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003. The last "retirement" flight occurred on 26 November that year.

Concorde remains an icon of aviation history, and has acquired an unusual nomenclature for an aircraft. In common usage in the United Kingdom, the type is known as "Concorde" rather than "the Concorde" or "a Concorde".