The Concorde airliner that crashed yesterday was one of 13 Anglo-French supersonic jets in service around the world, seven operated by British Airways and six by Air France.
The Concorde, the world's first supersonic airliner, went into commercial operation in January 1976, seven years after the first successful flight of a prototype.
It has had an outstanding safety record, marred by occasional technical incidents.
The British Airways spokesman, Commander Brian Walpole, said Concorde was "traditionally a safe plane to fly, though we all know that takeoff and landing are the most sensitive moments".
The aircraft is "very complex to pilot, very demanding because of its new technology, even though it's been flying for years," he said.
It was designed and financed by the British and French aviation industries; its name was intended to symbolise relations between the two countries.
The delta-winged aircraft, powered by four RollsRoyce/Snecma Olympus 593 jet engines, can carry between 100 and 144 passengers at a speed of Mach 2.04 (1,370 m.p.h) at a height of 15,000 to 18,000 metres.
British Airways and Air France flights are usually limited to 100 seats. It flies above turbulence at nearly 60,000 feet, crossing the Atlantic in about 3 1/2 hours.
A London-New York round trip costs £6,600. A round trip Paris-New York ticket costs £6,000, roughly 25 per cent more than regular first class.
In its first 20 years of operation Concorde carried 3.7 million passengers, the 13 aircraft clocking up more than 200,000 hours of flying time, of which 140,000 hours were spent flying at above the speed of sound.
British Airways plans to withdraw the Concorde from service in the next 15 to 20 years, while Air France has said it will use the airliner "at least until 2017".
Small cracks, said to be "microscopic", were detected a few months ago in all seven British Concordes, a British Airways spokeswoman said on Monday. The cracks on one of the aircraft had widened, forcing it to be grounded. However, they were not regarded as a safety issue and the other six airliners would continue to operate, she said.
Last January, two British Airways Concordes had to make emergency landings for technical reasons. One case involved an engine failure in one jet on an incoming flight, while in the second instance a Concorde, which had just taken off from Heathrow Airport, landed after a fire alarm went off in the cockpit.