VOA reports: A French judge has ordered Continental Airlines and five individuals to stand trial on charges arising from the crash of an Air France Concorde that killed 113 people in 2000.

The defendants include two employees of the U.S. carrier, two employees of Aerospatiale, the company that made the supersonic Concorde, and a French aviation official. All are charged with manslaughter.

The Concorde crashed in flames shortly after takeoff from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport on July 25, 2000, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.

French investigators said a strip of metal that fell off a Continental jet shredded one of the Concorde's tires as it sped down the runway toward takeoff. Debris punctured the swept-wing plane's fuel tanks, triggering a fatal fire within seconds.