The Concorde caught fire on take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport
US airline Continental and five individuals have gone on trial in France over the crash of an Air France Concorde nearly 10 years ago.
The jet took off in flames from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and crashed minutes later, killing 113 people.
An official report said Concorde had hit a metal strip from a Continental plane that had taken off earlier.
But Continental's lawyers say they can prove the supersonic jet caught fire before it struck the titanium strip.
"I am here to prove that Continental Airlines is not responsible," the airline's lawyer Olivier Metzner said as he arrived at the courtroom in Pontoise, west of Paris.
The stricken Concorde flight 4590 crashed in the town of Gonesse in July 2000, hitting a hotel and killing four people there as well as all 109 on board.
Most of the passengers were German tourists heading to New York to join a luxury cruise to the Caribbean. Nine French crew members also died.
The entire fleet of Concordes was grounded until an inquiry established that one of the plane's tyres had burst, causing debris to shoot out and rupture a fuel tank.
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