Concorde BMC Mini, the miniskirt, the Jaguar E-Type, the London Tube map and the Supermarine Spitfire. The type was retired in 2003, three years after the crash of Air France Flight 4590, in which all passengers and crew were killed. The general downturn in the commercial aviation industry after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the end of maintenance support for Concorde by Airbus (the successor company of both Aérospatiale and BAC) also contributed. The origins of the Concorde project date to the early 1950s, when Arnold Hall, director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) asked Morien Morgan to form
Anti-Concorde Project to stop Concorde from flying." Anti-Concorde Project The Anti-Concorde Project, founded by environmental activist Richard Wiggs, challenged the idea of supersonic passenger transport, and curtailed Concorde's commercial prospects. When Concorde entered service in 1976, of the 74 options (non-binding orders, from 16 airlines) held at the time of the first flight, only those for the state airlines of Britain (BOAC) and France (Air France) were taken up, so that only 20 were built, although flights were also flown for Braniff International and Singapore Airlines. It triggered research into the factors affecting the creation of sonic booms, which led to the