World in brief

Concordes land last time in London

LONDON - The Concorde bowed out Friday with a spectacular triple-landing finale, closing an era of supersonic passenger travel and leaving the skies to the slower, cheaper jets that proved to be the future of air travel.

Three supersonic planes glided into Heathrow Airport within minutes of one another. Flight 002, the plane's final trans-Atlantic passenger flight from New York, touched down last, at 4:05 p.m., close behind two other British Airways Concordes. One flew from Edinburgh, Scotland, carrying winners of a competition; the other had taken off from Heathrow earlier and whooshed guests over the Bay of Biscay at twice the speed of sound.

Passengers on the final flight from New York included broadcaster Sir David Frost, actor Joan Collins, model Christie Brinkley, ballerina Darcy Bussell and Formula One racing mogul Bernie Ecclestone.

Over the years, many criticized the Concorde's enormous roar, heavy fuel use and the pollutants it emitted. In New York, U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner hosted a champagne toast to celebrate the plane's demise. But tens of thousands of fans lined the road outside Heathrow to get a final look.

NOVOSHAKHTINSK, Russia - A team of mine rescue workers dug ventilation tunnels Friday and tried to reach 46 coal miners trapped about a half-mile underground in a shaft in southern Russia, emergency officials said.

The trapped miners were caught about 2,625 feet underground when water from a subterranean lake leaked into a shaft above them Thursday, blocking their way to the surface, said Col. Viktor Shkareda, head of the regional emergency department.

Seventy-one miners were in the Zapadnaya mine in the Rostov-on-Don region, 600 miles south of Moscow, when the accident happened, Shkareda said. Twenty-five miners escaped to other pits and reached the surface.

The miners have no food.

GRENADA ANNIVERSARY: U.S. officials paid tribute Friday to 19 American soldiers who died during an invasion of Grenada 20 years ago, laying a wreath of flowers at the Caribbean island's airport. An American-led force invaded on Oct. 25, 1983, after U.S. officials determined the airport was going to become a joint Cuban-Soviet base.

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