The Concorde caught fire as it took off from Charles de Gaulle airport A French appeals court has cleared US airline Continental of blame for the July 2000 crash of a Concorde jet shortly after take-off from Paris.The ruling comes two years after another French court fined the airline and held it criminally responsible for the crash in which 113 people died.
Investigators had said a piece of metal left on the runway after falling from a Continental jet had caused the crash.
Continental labelled the initial court decision absurd and launched an appeal.
The Air France Concorde burst into flames and crashed into nearby buildings after it took off from Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all 109 people on board and four hotel workers.
Most of the passengers were German tourists heading to New York to join a cruise to the Caribbean.
In 2010, a French court decided that the crash had been caused by a titanium strip that had fallen from a Continental airliner.
The US operator was fined 200,000 euros (£160,000) and ordered to pay 1m euros in damages to Air France.
In addition, a Continental mechanic, John Taylor, was given a 15-month suspended prison sentence over the crash.
But Thursday's ruling overturned those decisions.
The US airline had consistently argued that the Concorde caught fire before it hit the metal strip, and that they were being used as a scapegoat to protect France's airline industry.
Continental merged with United Airlines earlier this year.
Megan McCarthy, a spokeswoman for Chicago-based United Continental Holdings, said the firm supported the court's decision that Continental was not to blame.
"We have long maintained that neither Continental nor its employees were responsible for this tragic event and are satisfied that this verdict was overturned," she said in a written statement.
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