The future of supersonic passenger flight was in doubt last night after British Airways suspended its Concorde services.

The decision came after the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) revealed investigators now believed that a single burst tyre caused last month's Air France Concorde crash in which 113 lives were lost.

BA's Concorde pilots think the investigators' concern is that bits from the burst tyre were so large that they alone ruptured a fuel tank on the doomed flight, which crashed shortly after taking off from Paris.

Before, it was thought that the rupture was caused by bits from the wheels' metal covers - the tyre having been burst by a metal strip on the Paris runway.

BA acted yesterday after learning that the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) and its French counterpart would recommend tomorrow morning that Concorde's certificate of airworthiness be suspended.

The recommendation will be made to the CAA, which said it expected to formally suspend the certificate.

BA's New York-bound Concorde, with 37 passengers on board, was taxiing to its take-off spot at Heathrow Airport when the suspension decision was made.

Air France has not flown its Concordes since the crash. BA cancelled flights on the evening after the accident but resumed services the next day.

With no supersonic flights operating, there are now fears that this is the end for the plane, which began passenger services in 1976.

However, BA, the CAA and aviation experts all said they were hopeful that services could resume. Concorde pilots, who have often had to contend with burst tyres, were thought to be furious about the suspension.

BA chief executive Rod Eddington said yesterday: "The CAA was in complete agreement with our decision to resume Concorde's services shortly after the Air France crash.

"We were notified this morning by the AAIB that, in the light of latest information available, it would recommend that the certificate of airworthiness for the aircraft would be suspended.

"We discussed this with the CAA and we understand that it would be minded to accept this advice.

"As soon as we heard this, we immediately withdrew our supersonic fleet from service."

Former BA pilot Eric Moody said that "a very serious fault" must have been found for the regulatory authorities to withdraw the certificate of airworthiness.

The grounding was welcomed by passenger watchdog the Air Transport Users Council, which said the move proved the stringent safety investigation had been a success.

But the British Airline Pilot's Association was disappointed. General secretary Christopher Darke said: "British pilots have total confidence in Concorde."

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