LE BOURGET, France, May 29, 2010 (AFP) – A French aeronautics association with the Save Concorde Group examined the engines of a Concorde passenger jet at the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum outside Paris to determine if they could be used again.

Ben Lord, Vice Chairman Save Concorde Group, said: “Today marks the most critical date in Concorde’s history since she was retired almost 7 years ago.

“The objective is not to get it (Concorde) to fly again but to get the engines working again, hoping one day to see it taxi on the tarmac for the pleasure of visitors to the museum,” said Frederic Pinlet, head of Olympus 593, named after the Rolls Royce/Snecma engines used on the aircraft.

The association founded a little over a year ago has reached an agreement with the directors of the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum to allow the maintenance work on the F-BTSD, which had its last flight in 2003 at the Paris Air Show.

Pascal Touzeau, a mechanic for Air France who worked on the Concorde, examined the engine with the help of a camera.

“The exam showed that all is in a perfect condition,” he said, adding there would be more tests. The association says their examination of the engines will probably take a year.

Coincidentally, the testing of the engines of the Air France Concorde began the day after the end of the trial over the Concorde crash that killed 113 people in Paris in 2000.

That fatal crash led to the grounding of the Concorde and ultimately ended supersonic jet travel.

The French court said it would give a verdict on December 6.

“After today, we will know exactly what needs to be done with those four engines in order to take this to the next stage of engine test runs with an objective to hopefully perform a ground taxi.”

In an ironic twist, this major development gives further weight to the distinct possibility that Concorde could fly again and feature in the opening ceremony of the greatest event on the planet – the 2012 London Olympics.

Source: Save Concorde Group