On 30 June 1973, Concorde 001, the world’s fastest supersonic jet, took off from Las Palmas in the Spanish Canary Islands on a journey that would forever etch its name into eclipse history.
Flying at an altitude of 55,000 feet, the Concorde managed to extend the eclipse’s duration of totality to a remarkable 74 minutes. It raced the moon’s shadow across the Earth at a blistering 1,500 mph (2,400 km/h). In contrast, the eclipse lasts a mere 7 minutes on the ground.
The supersonic race was a collaboration between scientists from France, Britain, and the United States. Onboard were observers from prestigious institutions eager to study the sun’s corona, chromosphere, and the intensity of its light above the Earth’s atmosphere, says Space.com.
“We intercepted the totality and stayed within it for 74 minutes," recounted Donald Liebenberg, a scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory on the flight. "Our group aboard the Concorde set a record for the amount of time spent in totality that has never been broken. It was an experience I will never forget.”
The Concorde, flying at Mach 2, raced along the Tropic of Cancer, keeping pace with the moon’s shadow as it traversed Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger before landing in Chad.
In addition to the unprecedented duration of totality, the scientists on board were also able to witness the “first contact” and “third contact”- the beginning and end of the eclipse - when viewers on the ground see a brief display of Baily’s beads and the “diamond ring effect.”
The supersonic plane Concorde flew for the first time on 2 March 1969. The Anglo-French plane took off from Toulouse and was in the air for just 27 minutes before the pilot made the decision to land. Concorde's first commercial flights took place in 1976 between London and Bahrain, and Paris and Rio de Janeiro. So, the supersonic eclipse chasing adventure took place 3 years before Concorde's first commercial flight.