Tragedy captured in a single image

The final moments of the Air France Concorde as recorded by an amateur photographer

PARIS (CNN) -- Like many of the world's other major disasters, the Concorde crash near Paris has already become defined by a single image.

An amateur snapshot taken moments before the aircraft hit the ground, killing 113 people, was flashed around the world showing the instantly recognizable aircraft trailing a stream of flames.

But unlike the image of the cockpit of Pan Am 103 lying in a field in Lockerbie, this dramatic blurred photo shows the Concorde seconds before the tragedy.

The shocking live footage of the Challenger space shuttle exploding over the Gulf of Mexico, or the black-and-white film of the Hindenberg airship bursting into flames as it docked at Lakehurst, New Jersey, hold similar drama.

The final moments of the doomed Air France Concorde were captured by 20-year-old Hungarian tourist Andras Kisgergely.

Kisgergely, and his friend, Szabolcs Szalmasi, 22, were in the right place at the right time. Both are aircraft enthusiasts and had stopped in Paris as part of a three-week European tour by car of Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and France.

They do not have enough money to fly, but the pair have amassed thousands of pictures since Szalmasi became obsessed with planes at the age of 12, when he lived near an airport.

"I suppose the Eiffel Tower is nice but we are more interested in the airport," said Szalmasi. "Some people collect stamps or coins, we collect pictures of airplanes.

"If I go on vacation with my family, they see the city and I see the airport."

As part of their hobby of visiting airports and photographing planes, the pair drove near to Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday where, just before 4.45 p.m. local time they would have the opportunity to snap the world's fastest passenger plane.

Instead, the two engineering students from Budapest's Technical University witnessed disaster.

Within hours of the crash, their photo was obtained by the Reuters news agency and appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world. It is not known if any payment was made for the picture.

The Paris air disaster is not the first Kisgergely has seen. He was at the 1999 airshow in the Slovak capital Bratislava when a Hawk 100 military aircraft crashed.

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