All but one of the 20 Concordes are accounted for. Here’s what happened to the missing plane

There were galore adjectives, superlatives and descriptions thrown astatine Concorde during its 27 years successful the heavens. “Fast” was 1 of them. And “supersonic” was a connection that it, successful effect, came to assertion arsenic its own.

But astir of all, it had grace – and a graceful symmetry which, much than 2 decades connected from its retirement, makes it instantly and thrillingly recognisable: those vast, wide wings creating a sleek airborne triangle; that distinctive pointed chemoreceptor cone and retracting visor giving it an astir quizzical expression.

There was a symmetry, too, to its fleet. Not for Concorde the mass-market dominance of the Boeing 747, with its 1,574 models disconnected the accumulation enactment – nor the ubiquity of the A320, and its 11,918 members of the nine (and counting). This Anglo-French sophisticate was an exclusive beast – lone 20 Concordes were ever crafted. Round-number perfection.

Twenty is besides an casual statistic to support way of. It is hard to suffer number erstwhile the fig is truthful debased – and tricky to place thing of which determination are truthful fewer examples.

In the lawsuit of Concorde, the whereabouts of each 20 planes are known and documented.

Sixteen of them, including the 2 prototypes, are connected show successful museums oregon airports astir the satellite – from UK institutions specified arsenic Brooklands Museum astatine Weybridge successful Surrey and the National Museum of Flight successful East Lothian to US hotspots similar the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center astatine Dulles Airport successful Washington DC and the Intrepid Museum, connected the slope of the Hudson successful New York.

Two Concordes, meanwhile, are successful retention – 1 astatine Heathrow Airport (it sits conscionable disconnected Runway 27L, disposable to passengers connected applicable departing flights), 1 astatine Grantley Adams Airport successful Barbados (at a “Concorde Experience” that, astatine present, is closed to the public).

And 1 Concorde, infamously, is nary more: F-BTSC, which flew successful Air France livery, and fell to world conscionable aft take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, connected July 25 2000.

Keen mathematicians volition already person noted that 16 positive 2 positive 1 is simply a elemental sum. And that it adds up to 19.

Which begs a question: If it is not successful a depository oregon storage, and it did not crash, past what became of the 20th Concorde? It is simply a question worthy asking, too. Because, portion the whereabouts of the level are known and documented, its communicative – which reached its desultory decision 30 years agone this month, successful March 1995 – has gone (largely) untold.

For each their elegance, respective of the Concordes were high-speed workhorses. G-BOAC (now the main attraction astatine Manchester Airport’s Runway Visitor Park; spot here) logged 22,260 flying hours successful a 28-year vocation which lasted from February 1975 to October 2003.

The trajectory was astir akin for, successful ascending order, G-BOAB (in retention astatine Heathrow; 22,296 flying hours, betwixt May 1976 and August 2000), G-BOAA (in East Lothian; 22,768 flying hours betwixt November 1975 and August 2000), G-BOAE (the Barbados Concorde; 23,376 flying hours betwixt March 1977 and November 2003) and G-BOAD (at the Intrepid Museum, New York; 23,397 flying hours from August 1976 to November 2003).

As the G-prefix to their registration numbers hints, each of these Concordes were portion of the (Great) British Airways fleet. Their Air France siblings were a small little active. Of the 10 planes with an F-prefix registration, lone F-BVFA (now astatine Dulles Airport; 17,824 flying hours from October 1975 to June 2003) logged much than 15,000 hours successful the sky.

Then determination was F-BVFD. If not rather the runt of the litter, it was an outlier successful what was different a planetary success. Of the 14 accumulation Concordes that entered afloat commercialized work (seven for BA, 7 for Air France), it was by acold the astir under-used, chalking up conscionable 5,814 off-ground hours successful an abridged vocation that hardly reached its 5th birthday.

F-BVFD’s archetypal formation was connected February 10 1977; its last 1 connected May 27 1982. To enactment this successful context, the 2nd of the 14 accumulation Concordes to retire, F-BVFF (now displayed adjacent to Terminal 3 astatine Charles de Gaulle), managed 12,421 flying hours, opening successful December 1978. And it did not interaction down for the past clip until June 11 2000 – a period earlier its workfellow F-BTSC crashed, and efficaciously brought the Concorde epoch to an end.

So what happened to F-BVFD? Why was it the underachiever of a precise fabulous family?

The reply lies successful a comparatively forgotten country of the Air France timetable, and specifically, connected a West African runway, connected November 28 1977 – small much than a twelvemonth aft Concorde had near the hangar to go aviation’s finest hr and its precocious tidemark.

The fashionable recollection of Concorde, and of the assorted cities it called upon, tends to cling to the transatlantic top hits: the Air France hop from Paris to New York – or, successful the lawsuit of G-BOAD and its record-breaking crossing of 2 hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds connected February 7 1996 – the British Airways work from the Big Apple to London.

Less remembered – to an grade – are BA’s flights to Bahrain and Singapore, and that the Air France fleet made regular visits to Central and South America: to Mexico City, to Caracas, and to Rio de Janeiro.

While supersonic flights to the Venezuelan superior dependable preposterous successful the contiguous time (Air France flew determination astir from the off, with the archetypal Concorde formation departing connected April 10 1976), the four-and-a-half-hour jaunt down to Brazil’s astir iconic dot connected the representation was a staple portion of its supersonic schedule. Indeed, Rio was the inaugural Air France Concorde destination – the ticker-tape departure erstwhile the hose and its British state jointly unleashed their supersonic babe connected January 21 1976.

For each that Concorde treated the Atlantic with specified nonchalance that it mightiness person been skipping implicit a puddle, the Air France way to Rio did marque a halt connected the mode – successful Dakar, the superior of Senegal. And it was present that F-BVFD’s travel to obscurity began, with a landing truthful dense connected that time successful November 1977 that its tail-wheel was crushed.

F-BVFD deed the tarmac astatine 14 metres a 2nd alternatively than its proscribed bounds of 10, and successful the moments straight aft this touchdown, dragged its rear fuselage on the ground.

It was cleared to alert on, and continued to spell astir its concern for astir 5 years. But erstwhile a aboriginal inspection revealed important structural issues caused by this misjudged landing, its days were numbered. And geo-political circumstances were not successful its favour.

In 1982, Venezuela entered its steep spiral of decline, and with the Latin American routes proving little economically worthwhile than the header enactment to New York, Air France ceased its Concorde services to Mexico City, Caracas and Rio. This meant less flights – and the acold world that the hose required less Concordes to conscionable its commitments.

In the November of that year, 2 of its 7 supersonic planes were relieved of their duties – initially for restoration. The 2nd of the brace was the doomed F-BTSC, which returned to the roster successful April 1986, and flew with small incidental until the clang successful 2000. F-BVFD faced a slower fate. Already grounded arsenic of the May (1982), it was deemed to person been excessively harmed by its African misadventure for afloat repair to beryllium financially viable.

Its demise was torturous. Over the adjacent 12 years, it was cannibalised for parts, its captious organs either ripped retired and transplanted to its teammates, oregon sold to British Airways for the aforesaid purpose. By 1994 it was a corroded shell, a decennary of being near exposed to the elements astatine Charles de Gaulle having taken its toll. What remained was breached up for scrap successful 1994, though the last indignity came successful March 1995, erstwhile the nosecone was detached and shipped to a US collector for a reported 300,000 Francs (around £30,000).

If you look carefully, you tin spot its ghost. Its exhaust cowlings – cardinal to the ingenuity of those supersonic engines – are an grounds astatine the Farnborough Air Sciences Museum successful Hampshire. And if you ever drawback a formation from Le Bourget Airport, you mightiness announcement F-BVFD gleaming successful the Gallic sunshine. A spot of it, astatine immoderate rate.

What was erstwhile Paris’s main aviation hub (although it sits conscionable extracurricular the city, immoderate 7 miles to the north-east) closed its runway to scheduled flights successful 1980. But amidst the aerial shows and enactment displays that person go its banal successful trade, it inactive welcomes backstage jets.

Glance done 1 of these privileged windows, towards the south-west country of the airfield, and your oculus whitethorn alight connected a clump of antique planes and artefacts whose random slabs of disembodied metallic see portion of F-BVFD’s fuselage; nominally arsenic portion of the postulation astatine the airport’s Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace.

Nor is F-BVFD unsocial successful having this peculiar address. Le Bourget is besides location to 2 of the 16 on-display Concordes – 1 of the prototypes, F-WTSS, positive its Air France person F-BTSD, which rode the tail-winds astir until the extremity (its last formation was connected June 14 2003).

Over successful a adjacent hangar, meanwhile, prevarication the remnants of F-BTSC, 4 miles from wherever it crashed successful Gonesse. With Concorde, determination is ever a symmetry – adjacent successful death.

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