--- title: Concorde First Transatlantic Flight Washington DC to Paris: Sept. 26 description: Sept. 26, 1973: a Concorde jet makes its first non-stop flight over the Atlantic canonical: https://time.com/3398174/concorde/ author: Jennifer Latson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-26T14:30:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:16:31.136Z article:section: History og:title: Sept. 26, 1973: a Concorde jet makes its first non-stop flight over the Atlantic og:description: A high-flying feud, brought to you by the letter “e” og:url: https://time.com/3398174/concorde/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt030fb91a6934fe97/6986a42406f2c1d417330ce0/concorde.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Concorde og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sept. 26, 1973: a Concorde jet makes its first non-stop flight over the Atlantic twitter:description: A high-flying feud, brought to you by the letter “e” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt030fb91a6934fe97/6986a42406f2c1d417330ce0/concorde.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Concorde Discord: Insulted Prime Minister Gets Revenge With Airplane by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Sep 26, 2014 2:30 PM UTC  Concorde in flight, circa 1976 Concorde in flight, circa 1976Evening Standard / Getty Images by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Sep 26, 2014 2:30 PM UTC Its slogan was “Arrive before you leave,” but Concorde passengers had to settle for slightly slower travel than that, at twice the speed of sound. It took years of testing to convince the public it was safe to fly that fast. Although the famous Concorde first flew in 1969, the supersonic turbojet didn’t begin carrying commercial passengers until 1976\. Meanwhile, test pilots broke record after record. On this day, Sept. 26, in 1973, the Concorde made its first nonstop flight across the pond, from D.C. to Paris, in a record-smashing three hours and 32 minutes. A Boeing 747 took[ twice as long](http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/40-years-since-concordes-first-non-stop-transatlantic-flight/) to go as far. Cruising at 1,350 miles per hour, Concorde went on to set the [record](http://www.britishairways.com/en-us/information/about-ba/history-and-heritage/celebrating-concorde) for the fastest-ever transatlantic airliner crossing, on a 1996 New York-to-London flight that touched down just two hours, 52 minutes, and 59 seconds after takeoff. The plane was both an engineering marvel and a model of international collaboration. Designed and produced by a partnership between the French and British governments, it joined the fleets of both Air France and British Airways. However, mixing business with politics between foreign powers didn’t always go smoothly, however. For one thing, the effort was a massive financial loss. Only 20 planes ever entered commercial service, and neither government recouped their investment in engineering and testing. And then there was the extra “e.” Originally, the French and British officials overseeing the plane’s development agreed that it would be spelled “Concorde,” in the French way. But British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan reportedly felt snubbed once when French President Charles de Gaulle visited London and declined to see the prime minister, saying he had a cold; in retaliation, Macmillan decided to spell the name the British way on British planes — without the “e.” Britain’s aviation minister at the time, Tony Benn, later [told](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/oct/17/theairlineindustry.g21) _The Guardian_ that he came up with a plot to restore the “e,” and concord between the countries, when he attended the plane’s French roll-out in Toulouse. There, he simply announced that Britain was putting the “e” back on. “We had to have the same name for the same aircraft, and besides, it was reversing an insult to the French,” Benn explained. “I didn’t tell anybody I was planning to do it, but once I had announced it in Toulouse, they couldn’t do anything about it. I said, ‘E stands for excellence, for England, for Europe, and for the _entente cordiale_.’” The plane’s spotless safety record was shattered in 2000, when a French Concorde crashed just after takeoff at Charles de Gaulle Airport, killing all 109 people on board along with four on the ground. The damage to its reputation, coupled with an aging fleet and financial losses, conspired to ground the Concorde for good three years later. **_Read about that crash here, in TIME’s archives:_** [Doomed](http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2050152,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3398174/concorde/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3398174/concorde/"},"headline":"Concorde Discord: Insulted Prime Minister Gets Revenge With Airplane","datePublished":"2014-09-26T14:30:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:16:31.136Z","description":"Sept. 26, 1973: a Concorde jet makes its first non-stop flight over the Atlantic","url":"https://time.com/3398174/concorde/","keywords":["Technology","Travel","flight","paris"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt030fb91a6934fe97/6986a42406f2c1d417330ce0/concorde.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jennifer Latson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt030fb91a6934fe97/6986a42406f2c1d417330ce0/concorde.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Concorde","caption":"Concorde","creditText":"Evening Standard / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/technology/","name":"Technology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3398174/concorde/","name":"Concorde Discord: Insulted Prime Minister Gets Revenge With Airplane"}}]}] ```