French appeals trial opens over Concorde crash

Continental Airlines, French officials and mechanics are going back on trial.After years of investigation and a two-month trial, a court outside Paris convicted Continental and one of its mechanics in Texas of manslaughter in 2010.Both mechanic John Taylor and Continental appealed, and the new trial opens in Versailles on Thursday.The proceedings are expected to start with requests for a delay in the proceedings because of one defendants health and a constitutional dispute.A faulty metal strip on a Continental DC-10 fell onto the runway, puncturing the Concordes tire, sending bits of rubber into the fuel tanks and starting the fire that brought down the plane and sent it crashing into a hotel outside Paris.