US airline Continental and two of its employees are to stand trial for manslaughter over the crash of an Air France Concorde airliner in 2000 that killed 113 people.
A former French civil aviation official and two senior members of the Concorde programme will be tried, with proceedings expected to start early next year.
The New York-bound Concorde crashed in a ball of fire shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on July 25, 2000, killing all 109 people on board and four workers on the ground.
A French accident inquiry concluded in December 2004 that the disaster was partly caused by a strip of metal that fell on the runway from a Continental Airlines plane that took off just before the airliner.
The Concorde ran over the super-hard titanium strip, which shredded one of its tyres, causing a blow-out and sending debris flying into an engine and a fuel tank.
Continental Airlines is charged over a failure to properly maintain the aircraft along with two US employees, John Taylor, a mechanic who allegedly fitted the non-standard strip, and airline chief of maintenance, Stanley Ford.
The Concorde crash began the process which led to all Concordes, both French and British, being grounded in 2003.
The plane, born of British and French collaboration, embarked on its maiden commercial flight in 1976.
Only 20 were manufactured. Six were used for development and the remaining 14 entered service, flying mainly trans-Atlantic routes at speeds of up to 2,170 kilometres per hour.
