71 pages later my personal edification is complete!! All contributors, particularly the 3 venerable concateers (you know who you are!), many thanks for the most captivating of insights.
3..2..1..Now indeed! Bravo I salute you
!!
sAx
PS Having watched the Concorde Story, some consideration of sorts would need to be taken of events in the immediate aftermath of the Gonesse crash. AF from their perspective took the responsible position to ground aircraft, where BA continued flights later that evening following a business as usual approach. This proved quite upsetting on the French side of the Channel, as reasons behind AF4590's crash where unknown at that stage. The Gonesse Mayor being very critical about what appeared to his eyes to be a quite callous BA attitude, placing commercial consideration before public safety.
To rule any two individuals, the age old philosophy is to divide them. By the time recriminations started to fly from the BA side concerning AF maintenance standards, then the joint collaboration had achieved this for themselves. This left little room for manoeuvre for the CAA, who had to be seen to be placing the public interest before any cash as usual continuity. Their stance would need to be unequivocal, showing the public that the 'gamekeeper' would not be making any attempt to be seen in collusion with the 'poacher' and hence removal of the air worthiness certificate. This is not a riposte of any previous post, but just my $0.02c of what may have played a contributory part in the final decision to retire Concorde. Regardless of any attempt to present a united front, the end result may well have been the same. but it would have gone someway to underline public confidence in the responsible attitudes of both AF and BA.