Words in the News Wednesday 22 August 2001 Vocabulary from the news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
Concorde: return to the skies? Summary: After a meeting of the Anglo-French Concorde group on Monday, it was announced that Concorde will probably be allowed to make commercial flights again from next month. Flights have been suspended since last year's crash near Paris. This report from Valerie Jones:
The official statement from the meeting in Paris was optimistic. It said that procedures are on track to get the flight suspension lifted jointly by the French and the British, and probably before the end of the month. There are still processes to go through before commercial flights can recommence.
Approval will have to be given to the safety modifications that have been made to the planes. Then each aircraft will have to get its airworthiness certificate back and the flight crews will have to retrain. But British Airways are hoping their seven Concordes will be back in service next month.
The French are a little behind. They have yet to carry out their first test flight on the modified plane. It was an Air France Concorde that crashed just after take-off from Paris in July last year. A piece of metal on the runway had shattered a tyre and the flying debrispunctured a fuel tank which burst into flame. Now Concorde is to have reinforced fuel tanks, tougher tyres and better protection for the landing gear.
