Twenty years after a Concorde jet crashed into her hotel, Michèle Fricheteau has learned to live with her memories
Exclusive: Michèle Fricheteau was chatting to her assistant while preparing for arriving guests when a deafening sound drowned her out. A shattering blast then ripped through her Paris hotel.
The runway at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was less than 10km away from her hotel, so it wasn't unusual to hear the Concorde jets at l'Hôtelissimo.
Yet, on Tuesday July 25, 2000, the noise Ms Fricheteau heard from her reception counter signalled a disaster that would horrify the world.
New York-bound Air France Flight 4590 had malfunctioned during take-off, hitting debris on the runway that blew a tyre and sent it crashing in a ball of flames into her hotel.
All 100 passengers, nine crew and four of Ms Fricheteau's staff members died.
On July 25, 2000, Air France Flight 4590 crashed into a hotel in a suburb outside of Paris. 9News
The accident killed 113 people, and shattered Concorde's safety credibility. 9News
"I heard a very, very loud noise," she told 9News this week.
"I said to (my assistant) Frank, 'Oh la là, that's a lot of noise from the Concorde today – but I hadn't even finished my sentence when there was an explosion in the hotel, a terrible explosion."
The timing that changed everything
Ms Fricheteau had sent her other staff home early, and two buses of young musicians due at Hotel Hôtelissimo that afternoon had been delayed on the road.
"Our luck was unheard of," she said. "Forty minutes later, everyone would have died."
She says the hotel reception's flimsy wooden counter and her "very short" height saved her from the blast. But her face, arms and hair were severely burned.
The team at l'Hôtelissimo, at the reception counter that saved Ms Fricheteau's life. Supplied
She remembers shouting at Frank for him to flee through a window, as she frantically tried to move through the destroyed reception to find two cleaners on duty.
"It was impossible to get out, impossible," she said.
"Little Frank said to me, 'Listen, you won't get through, it's not possible'. So, I went out through the window as well."
The pair raced through plumes of black smoke to Les Relais Bleus, a neighbouring hotel. The heat from the explosion was so intense parts of the buildings melted together.
"I heard parts of the plane falling," Ms Fricheteau said.
"There were pieces of plane all over the ground, and I still did not think of the Concorde – I did not register, I had not made the connection between the accident and the noise of the Concorde."
The heat from the crash was so intense that buildings at a neighbouring hotel melted together. 9News
It was only after Ms Fricheteau's husband, son and daughter arrived at Les Relais Bleus, and doctors attempted to attend to her injuries, the full enormity of the disaster started to sink in.
"I kept saying, 'We need to find the girls, we must find the girls'," she said, referring to the two cleaners.
"At that moment, the doctor stopped me and said, 'Madame, there are no survivors'. And I suddenly understood – that I could not go to help them."
The crash, which a witness described as "a mini atomic bomb" left a crater where l'Hôtelissimo had been. 9News
One of the cleaners, Devranee Chundunsing, a single mother, had taken on the hotel job to support her two children. The other, Kenza Rachid, had just finished school. She started her summer job at the hotel the day before the crash.
"She arrived the 24th of July, she died on the 25th," Ms Fricheteau said of the happy-natured Ms Rachid.
"What a cruel joke."
Two 18-year-old students, Eva Lipinska and Paulina Sypko also died in the disaster. They had finished their summer jobs with Ms Fricheteau that week, and were heading home to Poland on the Friday.
Ms Fricheteau said they should have been out shopping for presents for family and friends, but had been unwell and decided to wait a day.
Paulina Sypko (left) and Eva Lipinska (right) with a friend. Supplied
The sharp-nosed Concorde jets, jointly developed in the 1960s by Air France and British Airways, had been cross-channel icons since their first commercial flights in 1976. But the crash ruined Concorde's safety credibility, and the supersonic aircraft were grounded for good in 2003.
Learning to live with painful memories
In the months following the tragedy, Ms Fricheteau, her husband and their children moved to New Caledonia to begin a new life in the South Pacific. They've kept in touch with the families of other victims.
For the 20th anniversary of the disaster this week they had planned a reunion in France, alongside the official memorial service today in Gonesse. But with flights cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, they have postponed the meeting until next year.
Michèle Fricheteau now lives in Nouméa, New Caledoni. She says her tight-knit family was her salvation as she dealt with the aftermath of the disaster Supplied
"We experienced an extraordinary drama," Ms Fricheteau, now 66, said.
"But now, we are alright. We have learned to live with that day."
The memories of that day still leave her visibly emotional. But surrounded by her children and grandchildren in Nouméa, family has been Ms Frichetau's "therapy".
"To all be together," she said, "that is what helped us overcome the crisis."
The site where l'Hôtelissmo stood, pictured with floral tributes after the crash. Supplied
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