Unfazed by pressure from various aviation alphabet groups concerned about the “criminalization” of aircraft accidents, a French court this week found a Continental Airlines mechanic guilty of involuntary manslaughter for his role in the July 25, 2000, crash of an Air France Concorde outside Paris. Judge Dominique Andreassier also found Continental Airlines civilly and criminally responsible for the accident, which killed 109 on board and four people on the ground. The judge ordered Continental to pay a €200,000 ($268,000) fine and €1 million ($1.34 million) in damages to Air France, while the mechanic, John Taylor, received a 15-month suspended prison sentence and a €2,000 ($2,682) fine. The court found Taylor’s former supervisor, Stanley Ford, along with three French officials, not guilty of the manslaughter charges filed against them.

Crash investigators determined that during its takeoff roll from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, the airplane hit a titanium wear strip that had fallen off a Continental McDonnell Douglas DC-10 minutes before. The strip burst one of the Concorde’s tires, pieces of which created a pressure shock wave in the left main fuel tank, causing it to rupture at its weakest point and leak fuel, which caught fire due to an electrical arc or through contact with cut electrical cables. After the crew shut down engine Number 2 in response to a fire warning, engine Number 1 eventually stalled and the fire partially melted the left wing. After reducing power on the remaining two engines in an attempt to correct for an asymmetric thrust condition, the crew lost control and crashed into a hotel near the airport. The court found that Taylor welded the unapproved strip of titanium to the DC-10 two weeks before the accident occurred.