How fast was Concorde
At heights of up to 60,000 feet (over 18,000 meters), the Concorde cruised at around 1,350 mph (2,170 km/hr) — more than twice the speed of sound. It could make the trip from London to New York in less than three-and-a-half hours, cutting the time of a typical flight in half. With the five-hour time difference, in local time, the Concorde would land before it took off. A British Airways Concorde made the fastest Atlantic crossing, flying from New York to London in two hours and 53 minutes. On January 21, 1976, Concorde jet planes took off simultaneously from London Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris, in the first commercial supersonic flights. The Concorde was never a great commercial success, and its first fatal accident — caused by a burst tire that ruptured a fuel tank and caused a fire and engine failure — resulted in the deaths of 113 people and marked the beginning of the end for the air service. It made its last regular commercial flight on October 24, 2003.