Continental Airlines, the American carrier, must stand trial on manslaughter charges over its alleged role in the crash of the Air France Concorde thatkilled 113 people in 2000, a French prosecutor has decided.

A similar charge should also be brought against a French engineer involved in the development of the supersonic jet, the former head of France's civil aviation authority and two Continental Airlines staff, he said.

Judges are to decide within six weeks whether to endorse the request from the prosecutor at Pointoise, the county town that covers Charles de Gaulle airport.

An inquiry in 2004 found that the Concorde ran over a strip of aluminium as it sped towards take-off on a chartered flight to New York on July 25, 2000. The strip, which was identified as a tail component of a Continental Airlines jet, shredded one of the Concorde's tyres, sending chunks of reinforced rubber through a fuel tank and setting the aircraft ablaze. It crashed on to a hotel at the town of Gonesse as its pilots were struggling to land it at nearby Le Bourget airport.

John Taylor, a Continental mechanic who allegedly fitted the non-standard strip, Stanley Ford, a Continental maintenance official, and the airline itself should stand trial for involuntarily causing death and injuries, said the prosecutor.

Also cited for trial were Henri Perrier, 77, the director of the first Concorde programme and Claude Frantzen, 69, a former director of technical services at the DGAC, the French civil aviation authority. They are alleged to have known that the Concorde's wing, which contained fuel tanks, was fragile and vulnerable to damage from the outside.

The prosecutors dropped charges against Jacques Herubel, Concorde's former chief engineer.

Continental has pledged to fight the charges. A successful prosecution would be likely to result in millions of pounds in damages against the airline.

Only 20 of the Anglo-French airliners were built. They entered service in 1976 and were finally grounded two years after the crash that ended their unblemished safety record.

It is routine French practice to bring charges of “causing unintentional death” against managers and others with responsibility in a chain of events leading to fatal accidents. Prison sentences are very rare but heavy fines can be imposed.

A court is due to give verdicts tomorrow after the long-delayed trial of an air traffic controller and five former officials from Airbus, Air France and the DGAC over a 1992 airline disaster in eastern France that killed 87 people. The prosecution argued that they were responsible for a navigational error that led the plane to hit the Mont Saint-Odile as it was approaching Strasbourg.

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