THE dream began in 1956, finally taking off 20 years later. Yesterday it fell from the sky in flames. Concorde, once the symbol of a new and exciting future, could soon be a part of our past.

The image of the doomed Air France plane, fire trailing from its wing, will terrify every traveller. It is both the scale and the inevitability of tragedy when an airliner fails that is so horrific. In this case, the fate of the 109 passengers on board was sealed the moment the plane left the runway at Charles de Gaulle airport yesterday. Four more were killed on the ground as the stricken plane hit the town of Gonesse with the devastating impact of an atom bomb, in the words of one witness.

As with any such disaster, our first thoughts are for the loved ones of those who died. The sense of shock is particularly acute in France; Germany, home to most of those killed, and the United States, the flight's destination.

Here in Britain, we are left to ponder whether the story of one of our most cherished technological accomplishments is over.

The Government first announced plans to build a supersonic airliner in 1956. It took a pioneering Anglo-French partnership, more than £1 billion and 13 years to move that proposal from the drawing board into the sky. The first test flights took place in 1969, the first passenger services took off seven years later.

Since then, Concorde has become a by-word for glamour. It is the jet of the jet-set, favoured by royalty and rock stars.

Yet, economically, it has not been a supersonic success story. Spiralling costs saw only 16 such planes built, the last in 1979. Concorde is dwarfed by modern airbuses, both in the number of seats on board and the number of flights undertaken.

Now even its exemplary safety record has been dramatically tarnished. The remaining fleet has been grounded, and so has the dream.