Final commercial flights of Concorde touch down

LONDON — The Concorde bowed out Friday with a spectacular triple-landing finale, closing an era of supersonic passenger travel and leaving the skies to the slower, cheaper jets that proved to be the future of air travel.

Three supersonic planes glided into Heathrow Airport within minutes of one another, a majestic send-off for an aircraft that was a technological marvel but an expensive commercial dud.

Flight 002, the plane's final trans-Atlantic passenger flight from New York, touched down last, at 4:05 p.m., close behind two other British Airways Concordes. One flew from Edinburgh, Scotland, carrying winners of a competition; the other had taken off from Heathrow an hour and a half earlier and whooshed invited guests over the Bay of Biscay at twice the speed of sound.

The jet from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport zoomed 11 crew and 100 passengers, many of them celebrities and aviation enthusiasts, across the Atlantic in about 3 1/2 hours. Passengers sipped champagne and snapped pictures as they flew.

"Concorde was born from dreams, built with vision, and operated with pride," said Capt. Michael Bannister, who was British Airways' chief Concorde pilot and flew the last trans-Atlantic trip.

Not everyone loved the slim, elegant jet.

Over the years, many criticized its enormous roar, heavy fuel use and the pollutants it emitted. In New York, U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner hosted a champagne toast to celebrate Concorde's demise.

But tens of thousands of fans lined the road outside Heathrow to get a final look at the plane that epitomized jet-set glamour.

Julia Zuk, 50, who lives near Heathrow, said she enjoyed her daily glimpses of the elegant jet and didn't mind the noise.

"It's like wearing stilettos," she said. "They hurt your feet, but you know they look a lot sexier than ordinary shoes."

The three jets landed at Heathrow to cheers and applause. The travelers who disembarked onto a red carpet took pictures of the plane and each other, and model Christie Brinkley said fellow passengers cheered when the jet touched down.

"It was very moving, very sad in a way," she said.

The delta-winged plane made a stately final approach west along the Thames, granted a low-altitude flyby for a last look at the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and other sights of central London.