Chanchao wrote in message . ..
[snip]
Things started to go really wrong on the $6,600-a-seat (£4,000) Concorde with
a frightening backfire over the Atlantic Ocean. Before it was over, the plane
had dropped from supersonic to subsonic speed, was running out of fuel and
made an unscheduled landing in Wales.
[snip]

I'm a bit dubious about this expression. Without more info, I'd
suspect that they didn't want to run below fuel minimums and so
landed at Wales. I'm dubious that they were in any danger of
having to dead stick the thing in. Minimums probably state that
they are supposed to have 45 minutes to an hour of fuel left
when they land.