It was fitted with the ‘return to flight’ modifications that had been mandated by the aircraft’s manufacturer and the relevant airworthiness authorities. Following the completion of these modifications, Air France flew F-BVFB to Istres in the South of France on January 26, 2001 to run tests to help understand the crash of F-BTSC. On completion of the tests F-BVFB was flown back to Paris for storage.
The tyre manufacturer Michelin announced on June 7, 2001 that the tyres that were tested at Istres on the French Concorde F-BTSD would be fitted to all Concordes when they returned to service. F-BVFB, being the first Air France Concorde to be modified following the crash of F-BTSC, was flown on a three and a half hour supersonic verification flight on August 27, 2001 during which it reached a speed of Mach 2.0 briefly.
