Flight AF-4590 from Paris to New York took off as scheduled at 4.42 p.m. local time yesterday. Its 100 passengers, mostly Germans, settled into their seats for the 3 1/2-hour transatlantic journey on the world's fastest airliner.
Each of them had paid handsomely to travel in style on the Air France flight chartered as a one-off for the first leg of a deluxe holiday of a lifetime. The plane was taking them to join a luxury sightseeing cruise ship, MS Deutschland for a 16-day cruise to Ecuador, via Florida, the Bahamas and Panama.
A flight in near noiseless luxury on the world-renowned supersonic jet lay ahead of the passengers. They would have sipped champagne and dined on gourmet food.
The only indulgence missing would have been an in-flight movie as video equipment is too heavy for the 1960s-designed aircraft to carry.
As the airliner's doors were sealed the crew of two pilots, an engineer and six hostesses, busied themselves preparing for what should have been a routine takeoff.
The weather was good and a flight bringing the French President Jacques Chirac back from a visit to Japan had just landed.
Passengers with any fears of flying could have consoled themselves with Concorde's unblemished safety record since it went into service 24 years ago. It flies above turbulence almost at the edge of space at 60,000 feet, crossing the Atlantic much faster than other jetliners. In addition to safety, the Concorde has status.
With its distinctive needle nose, it has become a symbol of affluence popular with celebrities and sports people.
At 4.42 p.m., the aircraft headed down the runway at Charles de Gaulle Airport. When he made the decision to take off, the pilot had probably no indications in the cockpit that anything was amiss.
But within seconds both passengers and crew were to become aware that all was not going to plan. A witness at Charles de Gaulle Airport said she saw flames coming from the back of the plane before it had even left the ground.
It's thought likely the engine failed before the plane had left the tarmac. Without sufficient runway to stop, the pilot may have reached the no-go-back point, forcing him to continue take-off in line with normal procedure. The aircraft soared into the air, but failed to gain height as normal.
Then came the explosion, followed by black smoke and flames trailing from the left engine. It appeared to try to circle to land again. Eyewitnesses watched as it glided very low over a motorway and offices. Then suddenly the engines - the noisiest in civil aviation - fell silent. Its nosecone tipped upwards as the aircraft stalled about 200 feet in the air.
Then it flipped over and plunged to the earth, slamming into the Issimo Hotel in Gonesse. The passengers had travelled just two miles from the airport.
They ended up in a field just 100 metres from apartment blocks in the half-rural, half-industrial suburbs near the airport.
A huge ball of fire shot up hundreds of feet into the air, followed by clouds of black smoke which could be seen for miles around. An acrid smell filled the area.
Mr Antonio Ferreira was in his garden when he noticed something strange about the Concorde that passed overhead.
"We hear all the planes that pass overhead," said the 43-year-old Gonesse resident. "Then there was nothing. I looked up. It was like an atomic bomb, a mushroom cloud in the sky."
Mr Sid Hare, a Federal Express pilot who was at a hotel several miles from the airport, said the plane went down in a ball of fire "like a mini atomic bomb".
He said he could "see smoke trailing" from one of the plane's two left engines before the crash.
"It started rolling over and backsliding down to the ground. At that point it was probably two miles from me," he said. "It was a sickening sight, just a huge fireball."
Another said the aircraft was not able to gain sufficient altitude before it crashed, and that police were keeping onlookers away from the site.
The crash took place in an area of farmland, criss-crossed by roads and the small town. Mr Frederic Savery (21) was driving home when he saw the plane go down: "I saw the plane, it passed 60 feet above us, the whole back end of the plane was on fire.
"We saw it start to turn, but we didn't hear a noise when it crashed. All of a sudden, everything was black. We stopped right there and called the firefighters."
Mr Samir Hossein (15), a student in Gonesse, was playing tennis with friends when they saw the plane go by, an engine on fire. "We saw it lose altitude. It chopped off those trees and headed to the ground. The pilot tried to bank but the plane rolled over and smacked into the hotel nose first and turned over," he said.
"We saw flames shoot up 120 feet and there was a huge boom." Police blocked off all roads leading to the crash scene, backing up traffic on all the rural routes in the farm fields just northeast of the airport. Dozens of fire trucks and ambulances rushed to the scene.
Firefighters poured streams of water on the huge completely blackened hulk of the Concorde. It was barely recognisable as an aircraft fuselage. Helicopters circled overhead.
Workers from nearby stores and businesses gathered outside their buildings and police had to block off at least one intersection to prevent onlookers from cutting off access.
The French air regulator sent investigators to the site. The accident inquiry bureau began sifting through the debris to search for the Concorde's two black boxes. Hours after the crash, emergency services were still putting out small fires around the scene and the wreck was giving off thick smoke.
There were more than 400 fire fighters at the scene.
All 109 passengers and crew perished instantly. The passengers had included 97 adults and three youngsters under 18. Four people on the ground died.