A remarkable amount of engineering goes into a tyre. The Concorde was one of the most sophisticated aircraft of its time, but it was ultimately undone by tyres - nobody quite figured out how to build a tyre that could reliably handle 170mph landings. Poor maintenance and pilot error played a contributory role in the crash of Air France flight 4590, but Concorde had a rate of tyre failure 30 times higher than subsonic aircraft.