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Air France Flight 447

April 27, 2024

Air France Flight 447 (AF447/AFR447)[b] was a scheduled international passenger flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. On 1 June 2009, inconsistent airspeed indications led to the pilots inadvertently stalling the Airbus A330 serving the flight. They failed to recover the plane from the stall, and the plane crashed into the mid Atlantic Ocean at 02:14 UTC, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board.[2]

Air France Flight 447
F-GZCP, the aircraft involved in the accident, landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport in March 2007
Accident
Date1 June 2009
SummaryEntered high-altitude stall; impacted ocean
SiteAtlantic Ocean near waypoint TASIL[1]: 9 
3°03′57″N 30°33′42″W / 3.06583°N 30.56167°W / 3.06583; -30.56167
Aircraft
Aircraft typeAirbus A330-203[a]
OperatorAir France
IATA flight No.AF447
ICAO flight No.AFR447
Call signAIRFRANS 447
RegistrationF-GZCP
Flight originRio de Janeiro/Galeão International Airport
DestinationParis Charles de Gaulle Airport
Occupants228
Passengers216
Crew12
Fatalities228
Survivors0

The Brazilian Navy recovered the first major wreckage and two bodies from the sea within five days of the accident, but the investigation by France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) was initially hampered because the aircraft's flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years after the accident.[3]

The BEA's final report, released at a press conference on 5 July 2012, concluded that the aircraft suffered temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements—likely resulting from ice crystals obstructing the aircraft's pitot tubes—which caused the autopilot to disconnect. The crew reacted incorrectly to the abnormality, causing the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stall which the pilots failed to correct.[2]: 79 [4]: 7 [5] The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air France, as well as the deadliest aviation accident involving the Airbus A330.[6]

Aircraft edit

The aircraft involved in the accident was a 4-year-old Airbus A330-203,[c] with manufacturer serial number 660, registered as F-GZCP. Its first flight was on 25 February 2005, and it was delivered 2 months later to the airline on 18 April 2005. At the time of the crash, it was Air France's newest A330.[7][8] The aircraft was powered by two General Electric CF6-80E1A3 engines with a maximum thrust of 68,530 or 60,400 lbf (304.8 or 268.7 kN) (take-off/max continuous),[9] giving it a cruise speed range of Mach 0.82–0.86 (470–493 knots or 870–913 kilometres per hour or 541–567 miles per hour), at 35,000 feet (11,000 m) of altitude and a range of 12,500 km (6,700 nmi; 7,800 mi). The aircraft underwent a major overhaul on 16 April 2009, and at the time of the accident had accumulated about 18,870 flying hours.[10]

Passengers and crew edit

Final tally of passenger nationalities
Nationality Passengers Crew Total
Argentina[11] 1 0 1
Austria[12] 1 0 1
Belgium[13] 1 0 1
Brazil 58 1 59
Canada 1 0 1
China[14] 9 0 9
Croatia[15] 1 0 1
Denmark 1 0 1
Estonia[16] 1 0 1
France 61 11 72
Gabon[17] 1 0 1
Germany[18] 26 0 26
Hungary 4 0 4
Iceland[19] 1 0 1
Ireland[20] 3 0 3
Italy[21] 9 0 9
Lebanon 3 0 3
Morocco[22] 3 0 3
Netherlands[23] 1 0 1
Norway[24] 3 0 3
Philippines[25] 1 0 1
Poland[26] 2 0 2
Romania[27] 1 0 1
Russia[28] 1 0 1
Slovakia[29] 3 0 3
South Africa[30] 1 0 1
South Korea[31] 1 0 1
Spain[32] 2 0 2
Sweden[33] 1 (2) 0 1 (2)
Switzerland[34] 6 0 6
Turkey[35] 1 0 1
United Kingdom[36] 5 0 5
United States[37] 2 0 2
Total 216 12 228
Notes:
  • Nationalities shown are as stated by Air France on 1 June 2009.[38]
  • Attributing nationality was complicated by the holding of multiple citizenship by several passengers.
  • Passengers who had citizenship in one country but were attributed to another country by Air France are indicated with parentheses ().

The aircraft was carrying 216 passengers, 3 aircrew, and 9 cabin crew in two cabins of service.[6][39][40] Among the 216 passengers were 126 men, 82 women and 8 children (including 1 infant).[41]

There were three pilots on the flight:[2]: 24–29 

  • The captain, 58-year-old Marc Dubois (PNF-pilot not flying)[2]: 21  had joined Air France in February 1988 from rival French domestic carrier Air Inter (which later merged into Air France),[42] and had 10,988 flying hours, of which 6,258 were as captain, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus A330; he had carried out 16 rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2007.[43]
  • The relief first officer, co-pilot in left seat, 37-year-old David Robert (PNF) had joined Air France in July 1998 and had 6,547 flying hours, of which 4,479 hours were on the Airbus A330; he had carried out 39 rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2002. Robert had graduated from École nationale de l'aviation civile, one of the elite Grandes Écoles, and had transitioned from a pilot to a management job at the airline's operations center. He served as a pilot on this flight to maintain his flying credentials.[44][43]
  • The first officer, co-pilot in right seat, 32-year-old Pierre-Cédric Bonin (PF-pilot flying) had joined Air France in October 2003 and had 2,936 flight hours, of which 807 hours were on the Airbus A330; he had carried out five rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2008.[43] His wife Isabelle, a physics teacher, was also on board.[45][46][47][48][49]

Of the 12 crew members (including aircrew and cabin crew), 11 were French and 1 was Brazilian.[50]

The majority of passengers were French, Brazilian, or German citizens.[51][52][38] The passengers included business and holiday travelers.[53]

Air France established a crisis center[54] at Terminal 2D for the 60 to 70 relatives and friends who arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport to pick up arriving passengers, but many of the passengers on Flight 447 were connecting to other destinations worldwide. In the days that followed, Air France contacted close to 2,000 people who were related to, or friends of, the victims.[55]

On 20 June 2009, Air France announced that each victim's family would be paid roughly €17,500 in initial compensation.[56]

Notable passengers edit

Accident edit

 
Rio de Janeiro
22:29, 31 May
Fernando de Noronha
01:33, 1 June
Last known position
N2.98 W30.59
02:10, 1 June
Paris
Expected at 09:03,
1 June
 
Approximate flight path of AF 447: The solid red line shows the actual route. The dashed line indicates the planned route beginning with the position of the last transmission heard. All times are UTC.

The aircraft departed from Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport on 31 May 2009 at 19:29 Brazilian Standard Time (22:29 UTC),[2]: 21  with a scheduled arrival at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11:03 Central European Summer Time (09:03 UTC) the following day (estimated flight time of 10:34).[68] Voice contact with the aircraft was lost around 01:35 UTC, 3 hours and 6 minutes after departure. The last message reported that the aircraft had passed waypoint INTOL (1°21′39″S 32°49′53″W / 1.36083°S 32.83139°W / -1.36083; -32.83139), located 565 km (351 mi; 305 nmi) off Natal, on Brazil's north-eastern coast.[69] The aircraft left Brazilian Atlantic radar surveillance at 01:49 UTC,[2]: 49 [70] and entered a communication dead zone.[44][2][failed verification]

The Airbus A330 is designed to be flown by two pilots, but the 13-hour "duty time" (the total flight duration, as well as preflight preparation) required for the Rio-Paris route exceeded the 10 hours permitted before a pilot had to take a break as dictated by Air France's procedures. To comply with these procedures, Flight 447 was crewed by three pilots: a captain and two first officers.[71] With three pilots on board, each pilot could take a break in the A330's rest cabin, located behind the cockpit.[72]

In accordance with common practice, Captain Dubois sent one of the co-pilots for the first rest period with the intention of taking the second break himself.[73] At 01:55 UTC, he woke up First Officer Robert and said, "... he's going to take my place". After attending the briefing between the two co-pilots, the captain left the cockpit to rest at 02:01:46 UTC. At 02:06 UTC, the pilot warned the cabin crew that they were about to enter an area of turbulence. About two to three minutes later, the aircraft encountered icing conditions. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recorded sounds akin to hail or graupel on the outside of the aircraft, and ice crystals began to accumulate in the pitot tubes, which measure airspeed.[74] Bonin, the pilot flying, turned the aircraft slightly to the left and decreased its speed from Mach 0.82 to 0.80, which was the recommended speed to penetrate turbulence. The engine anti-ice system was also turned on.[75]

 
The aircraft's vertical stabilizer after its recovery from the ocean

At 02:10:05 UTC, the autopilot disengaged, most likely because the pitot tubes had iced over, and the aircraft transitioned from "normal law" to "alternate law 2 (ALT2)".[76] The engines' autothrust systems disengaged three seconds later. The autopilot disconnect warning was heard on the CVR.

Bonin took manual control of the aircraft. Without the autopilot, turbulence caused the aircraft to start to roll to the right, and Bonin reacted by deflecting his side-stick to the left. One consequence of the change to ALT2 was an increase in the aircraft's sensitivity to roll, and the pilot overcorrected. During the next 30 seconds, the aircraft rolled alternately left and right as he adjusted to the altered handling characteristics of the aircraft.[77] At the same time, he abruptly pulled back on his side-stick, raising the nose. This action was unnecessary and excessive under the circumstances.[78] The aircraft's stall warning briefly sounded twice because the angle-of-attack tolerance was exceeded, and the aircraft's indicated airspeed dropped sharply from 274 knots (507 km/h; 315 mph) to 52 knots (96 km/h; 60 mph). The aircraft's angle of attack increased, and the aircraft subsequently began to climb above its cruising altitude of 35,000 ft (FL350). During this ascent, the aircraft attained vertical speeds well in excess of the typical rate of climb for the Airbus A330, which usually ascend at rates no greater than 2000 feet per minute (10 m/s). The aircraft experienced a peak vertical speed close to 7,000 feet per minute (36 m/s; 130 km/h),[77] which occurred as Bonin brought the rolling movements under control.

At 02:10:34 UTC, after displaying incorrectly for half a minute, the left-side instruments recorded a sharp rise in airspeed to 223 knots (413 km/h; 257 mph), as did the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS) 33 seconds later.[79] The right-side instruments were not recorded by the flight data recorder. The icing event had lasted for just over a minute,[80][81][2]: 198 [82] yet Bonin continued to make nose-up inputs. The trimmable horizontal stabilizer (THS) moved from 3 to 13° nose-up in about one minute, and remained in the latter position until the end of the flight.

At 02:11:10 UTC, the aircraft had climbed to its maximum altitude around 38,000 feet (11,582 m). At this point, the aircraft's angle of attack was 16°, and the engine thrust levers were in the fully forward takeoff/go-around (TOGA) detent. As the aircraft began to descend, the angle of attack rapidly increased toward 30°. A second consequence of the reconfiguration into ALT2 was that the stall protection no longer operated, whereas in normal law, the aircraft's flight-management computers would have acted to prevent such a high angle of attack.[83] The wings lost lift and the aircraft began to stall.[4][page needed]

Confused, Bonin exclaimed, "I don't have control of the airplane any more now", and two seconds later, "I don't have control of the airplane at all!"[43] Robert responded to this by saying, "controls to the left", and took over control of the aircraft.[84][45] He pushed his side-stick forward to lower the nose and recover from the stall; however, Bonin was still pulling his side-stick back. The inputs cancelled each other out and triggered an audible "dual input" warning.

At 02:11:40 UTC, Captain Dubois re-entered the cockpit after being summoned by Robert.[45] The angle of attack had then reached 40°, and the aircraft had descended to 35,000 feet (10,668 m) with the engines running at almost 100% N1 (the rotational speed of the front intake fan, which delivers most of a turbofan engine's thrust). The stall warnings stopped, as all airspeed indications were now considered invalid by the aircraft's computer because of the high angle of attack.[85] The aircraft had its nose above the horizon, but was descending steeply.

Roughly 20 seconds later, at 02:12 UTC, Bonin decreased the aircraft's pitch slightly. Airspeed indications became valid, and the stall warning sounded again; it then sounded intermittently for the remaining duration of the flight, stopping only when the pilots increased the aircraft's nose-up pitch. From there until the end of the flight, the angle of attack never dropped below 35°. From the time the aircraft stalled until its impact with the ocean, the engines were primarily developing either 100% N1 or TOGA thrust, though they were briefly spooled down to about 50 percent N1 on two occasions. The engines always responded to commands and were developing in excess of 100 percent N1 when the flight ended. Robert responded to Dubois by saying, "We've lost all control of the aeroplane, we don't understand anything, we've tried everything".[45] Soon after this, Robert said to himself, "climb" four consecutive times. Bonin heard this and replied, "But I've been at maximum nose-up for a while!" When Captain Dubois heard this, he realized Bonin was causing the stall, and shouted, "No no no, don't climb! No No No!"[86][45] When Robert heard this, he told Bonin to give him control of the airplane,[2] and Bonin initially obliged.[45][86][2]

The aircraft was now too low to recover from the stall. Robert pushed his side-stick forward to try to regain lift in order to get out of the stall; however, shortly thereafter, the ground proximity warning system sounded an alarm, warning the crew about the aircraft's imminent crash with the ocean. In response, Bonin (without informing his colleagues) pulled his side-stick all the way back again,[45][2] and said, "We're going to crash! This can't be true. But what's happening?"[86][45][2][87][43] The last recording on the CVR was Dubois saying, "(ten) degrees pitch attitude."

Both flight recorders stopped recording at 02:14:28 UTC, 3 hours and 45 minutes after takeoff. At that point, the aircraft's ground speed was recorded as 107 knots (198 km/h; 123 mph), and that the aircraft was descending at 10,912 feet per minute (55.43 m/s) (108 knots (200 km/h; 124 mph) of vertical speed). Its pitch was 16.2° nose-up, with a roll angle of 5.3° to the left. During its descent, the aircraft had turned more than 180° to the right to a compass heading of 270°. The aircraft remained stalled during its entire 3-minute-30-second descent from 38,000 feet (12,000 m).[88] The aircraft struck the ocean belly-first at a speed of 152 knots (282 km/h; 175 mph), comprising vertical and horizontal components of 108 knots (200 km/h; 124 mph) and 107 knots (198 km/h; 123 mph), respectively. All 228 passengers and crew on board died on impact from extreme trauma and the aircraft was destroyed.[89][2][87]

Automated messages edit

Air France's A330s are equipped with a communications system, Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which enables them to transmit data messages via VHF or satellite.[d] ACARS can be used by the aircraft's on-board computers to send messages automatically, and F-GZCP transmitted a position report about every 10 minutes. Its final position report at 02:10:34 gave the aircraft's coordinates as 2°59′N 30°35′W / 2.98°N 30.59°W / 2.98; -30.59.[e]

In addition to the routine position reports, F-GZCP's centralized maintenance system sent a series of messages via ACARS in the minutes immediately prior to its disappearance.[90][91][92] These messages, sent to prepare maintenance workers on the ground prior to arrival, were transmitted between 02:10 UTC and 02:15 UTC,[93] and consisted of five failure reports and 19 warnings.[94][95][96][97]

 
Recife, 8 June 2009; Captain Tabosa shows the map with the location of the remains of the Airbus A330-203.

Among the ACARS transmissions at 02:10 is one message that indicates a fault in the pitot-static system.[93][97] Bruno Sinatti, president of Alter, Air France's third-biggest pilots' union, stated, "Piloting becomes very difficult, near impossible, without reliable speed data."[98] The 12 warning messages with the same time code indicate that the autopilot and autothrust system had disengaged, that the traffic collision avoidance system was in fault mode, and flight mode went from "normal law" to "alternate law (ALT)".[99][100]

The remainder of the messages occurred from 02:11 UTC to 02:14 UTC, containing a fault message for an air data inertial reference unit and ISIS.[100][101] At 02:12 UTC, a warning message NAV ADR DISAGREE indicated that a disagreement existed between the three independent air data systems.[f] At 02:13 UTC, a fault message for the flight management guidance and envelope computer was sent.[102] One of the two final messages transmitted at 02:14 UTC was a warning referring to the air data reference system, the other ADVISORY was a "cabin vertical speed warning", indicating that the aircraft was descending at a high rate.[90][103][104][105]

Weather conditions edit

Weather conditions in the mid-Atlantic were normal for the time of year, and included a broad band of thunderstorms along the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).[106] A meteorological analysis of the area surrounding the flight path showed a mesoscale convective system extending to an altitude of around 50,000 feet (15,000 m) above the Atlantic Ocean before Flight 447 disappeared.[107][108][109][110] During its final hour, Flight 447 encountered areas of light turbulence.[111]

Commercial air transport crews routinely encounter this type of storm in this area.[112] With the aircraft under the control of its automated systems, one of the main tasks occupying the cockpit crew was that of monitoring the progress of the flight through the ITCZ, using the on-board weather radar to avoid areas of significant turbulence.[113] Twelve other flights had recently shared more or less the same route that Flight 447 was using at the time of the accident.[114][115]

Search and recovery edit

 
Brigadier Cardoso speaks to the media about the search for the crashed aircraft.

Surface search edit

Flight 447 was due to pass from Brazilian airspace into Senegalese airspace around 02:20 (UTC) on 1 June, and then into Cape Verdean airspace at roughly 03:45. Shortly after 04:00, when the flight had failed to contact air traffic control in either Senegal or Cape Verde, the controller in Senegal attempted to contact the aircraft. When he received no response, he asked the crew of another Air France flight (AF459) to try to contact AF447; this also met with no success.[116]

After further attempts to contact Flight 447 were unsuccessful, an aerial search for the missing Airbus commenced from both sides of the Atlantic. Brazilian Air Force aircraft from the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha and French reconnaissance aircraft based in Dakar, Senegal, led the search.[41] They were assisted by a Casa 235 maritime patrol aircraft from Spain[117] and a United States Navy Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion anti-submarine warfare and maritime patrol aircraft.[118][119]

By early afternoon on 1 June, officials with Air France and the French government had already presumed the aircraft had been lost with no survivors. An Air France spokesperson told L'Express that "no hope for survivors" remained,[120][121] and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced almost no chance existed for anyone to have survived.[122] On 2 June at 15:20 (UTC), a Brazilian Air Force Embraer R-99A spotted wreckage and signs of oil, possibly jet fuel, strewn along a 5 km (3 mi; 3 nmi) band 650 km (400 mi; 350 nmi) north-east of Fernando de Noronha Island, near the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago. The sighted wreckage included an aircraft seat, an orange buoy, a barrel, and "white pieces and electrical conductors".[123][124] Later that day, after meeting with relatives of the Brazilians on the aircraft, Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim announced that the Air Force believed the wreckage was from Flight 447.[125][126] Brazilian vice-president José Alencar (acting as president since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was out of the country) declared three days of official mourning.[126][127]

 
Lt. Col. Henry Munhoz describes the recovery of Airbus A330 wreckage from the ocean.

Also on 2 June, two French Navy vessels, the frigate Ventôse and helicopter-carrier Mistral, were en route to the suspected crash site. Other ships sent to the site included the French research vessel Pourquoi Pas?, equipped with two minisubmarines able to descend to 6,000 m (20,000 ft),[128][129] since the area of the Atlantic in which the aircraft went down was thought to be as deep as 4,700 m (15,400 ft).[130][131]

On 3 June, the first Brazilian Navy (the "Marinha do Brasil" or MB) ship, the patrol boat Grajaú, reached the area in which the first debris was spotted. The Brazilian Navy sent a total of five ships to the debris site; the frigate Constituição and the corvette Caboclo were scheduled to reach the area on 4 June, the frigate Bosísio on 6 June and the replenishment oiler Almirante Gastão Motta on 7 June.[132][133]

Early on 6 June 2009, five days after Flight 447 disappeared, two male bodies, the first to be recovered from the crashed aircraft, were brought on board the Caboclo[134] along with a seat, a nylon backpack containing a computer and vaccination card, and a leather briefcase containing a boarding pass for the Air France flight. Initially, media (including The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune) cited unnamed investigators in their reporting that the recovered bodies were naked, which implied the plane had broken up at high altitude.[135] However, the notion that the aircraft fragmented while airborne ultimately was refuted by investigators.[136] At this point, on the evidence of the recovered bodies and materials, investigators confirmed the plane had crashed, killing everyone on board.[137][138] The following day, 7 June, search crews recovered the Airbus's vertical stabilizer, the first major piece of wreckage to be discovered. Pictures of this part being lifted onto the Constituição became a poignant symbol of the loss of the Air France craft.[1][page needed][139]

 
The bodies found in the ocean were transferred to the morgue in Brazil for autopsy and identification.

The search and recovery effort reached its peak over the next week or so, as the number of personnel mobilized by the Brazilian military exceeded 1100.[g][140] Fifteen aircraft (including two helicopters) were devoted to the search mission.[141] The Brazilian Air Force Embraer R99 flew for more than 100 hours, and electronically scanned more than a million square kilometers of ocean.[142] Other aircraft involved in the search scanned, visually, 320,000 square kilometres (120,000 sq mi; 93,000 sq nmi) of ocean and were used to direct Navy vessels involved in the recovery effort.[140]

 
Seat map showing locations of the recovered bodies during the 2009 search operations.

By 16 June 2009, 50 bodies had been recovered from a wide area of the ocean.[143][144][145] They were transported to shore, first by the frigates Constituição and Bosísio to the islands of Fernando de Noronha, and thereafter by air to Recife for identification.[145][146][147][148] Pathologists identified all 50 bodies recovered from the crash site, including that of the captain, by using dental records and fingerprints.[149][150][151] The search teams logged the time and location of every find in a database which, by the time the search ended on 26 June, catalogued 640 items of debris from the aircraft.[143]

The BEA documented the timeline of discoveries in its first interim report.[152][153][154]

Underwater search edit

On 5 June 2009, the French nuclear submarine Émeraude was dispatched to the crash zone, arriving in the area on the 10th. Its mission was to assist in the search for the missing flight recorders or "black boxes" that might be located at great depth.[155] The submarine would use its sonar to listen for the ultrasonic signal emitted by the black boxes' "pingers",[156] covering 13 sq mi (34 km2; 9.8 sq nmi) per day. The Émeraude was to work with the mini-sub Nautile, which can descend to the ocean floor. The French submarines would be aided by two U.S. underwater audio devices capable of picking up signals at a depth of 20,000 ft (6,100 m).[157]

 
Colour bathymetry relief map of the part of Atlantic Ocean into which Air France Flight 447 crashed. Image shows two different data sets with different resolution.[h]

Following the end of the search for bodies, the search continued for the Airbus's "black boxes"—the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR). French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) chief Paul-Louis Arslanian said that he was not optimistic about finding them since they might have been under as much as 3,000 m (9,800 ft) of water, and the terrain under this portion of the ocean was very rugged.[158] Investigators were hoping to find the aircraft's lower aft section, for that was where the recorders were located.[159] Although France had never recovered a flight recorder from such depths,[158] there was precedent for such an operation: in 1988, an independent contractor recovered the CVR of South African Airways Flight 295 from a depth of 4,900 m (16,100 ft) in a search area of between 80 and 250 square nautical miles (270 and 860 km2; 110 and 330 sq mi).[160][161] The Air France flight recorders were fitted with water-activated acoustic underwater locator beacons or "pingers", which should have remained active for at least 30 days, giving searchers that much time to locate the origin of the signals.[162]

France requested two "towed pinger locator hydrophones" from the United States Navy to help find the aircraft.[128] The French nuclear submarine and two French-contracted ships (the Fairmount Expedition and the Fairmount Glacier, towing the U.S. Navy listening devices) trawled a search area with a radius of 80 kilometres (50 mi), centred on the aircraft's last known position.[163][164] By mid-July, recovery of the black boxes still had not been announced. The finite beacon battery life meant that, as the time since the crash elapsed, the likelihood of location diminished.[165] In late July, the search for the black boxes entered its second phase, with a French research vessel resuming the search using a towed sonar array.[166] The second phase of the search ended on 20 August without finding wreckage within a 75 km (47 mi; 40 nmi) radius of the last position, as reported at 02:10.[167]

 
East-west cross-section of Atlantic Ocean portion in which Air France Flight 447 crashed, showing depth of the sea floor. The vertical scale is exaggerated by a factor of 100 relative to the horizontal.

The third phase of the search for the recorders lasted from 2 April until 24 May 2010,[168][169][170] and was conducted by two ships, the Anne Candies and the Seabed Worker. The Anne Candies towed a U.S. Navy sonar array, while the Seabed Worker operated three robot submarines AUV ABYSS (a REMUS AUV type).[168][171][172][173] Air France and Airbus jointly funded the third phase of the search.[174][175] The search covered an area of 6,300 square kilometres (2,400 sq mi; 1,800 sq nmi), mostly to the north and north-west of the aircraft's last known position.[168][172][176] The search area had been drawn up by oceanographers from France, Russia, Great Britain and the United States combining data on the location of floating bodies and wreckage, and currents in the mid-Atlantic in the days immediately after the crash.[177][178][179] A smaller area to the south-west was also searched, based on a re-analysis of sonar recordings made by Émeraude the previous year.[180][181][182] The third phase of the search ended on 24 May 2010 without any success, though the BEA says that the search 'nearly' covered the whole area drawn up by investigators.[168]

2011 search and recovery edit

In July 2010, the U.S.-based search consultancy Metron, Inc., had been engaged to draw up a probability map of where to focus the search, based on prior probabilities from flight data and local condition reports, combined with the results from the previous searches. The Metron team used what it described as "classic" Bayesian search methods, an approach that had previously been successful in the search for the submarine USS Scorpion and SS Central America. Phase 4 of the search operation started close to the aircraft's last known position, which was identified by the Metron study as being the most likely resting place of flight 447.[183][184]

 
Cable ship Île de Sein was assigned to assist in the recovery of materials from the ocean floor.

Within a week of resuming of the search operation, on 3 April 2011, a team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution operating full ocean depth autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) owned by the Waitt Institute[185] discovered, by means of sidescan sonar, a large portion of the debris field from flight AF447.[183] Further debris and bodies, still trapped in the partly intact remains of the aircraft's fuselage, were at a depth of 3,980 metres (2,180 fathoms; 13,060 ft).[186] The debris was found lying in a relatively flat and silty area of the ocean floor (as opposed to the extremely mountainous topography originally believed to be AF447's final resting place).[187] Other items found were engines, wing parts and the landing gear.[188]

The debris field was described as "quite compact", measuring 200 by 600 metres (660 by 1,970 ft) and a short distance north of where pieces of wreckage had been recovered previously, suggesting the aircraft hit the water largely intact.[189] The French Ecology and Transportation Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet stated the bodies and wreckage would be brought to the surface and taken to France for examination and identification.[190] The French government chartered the Île de Sein to recover the flight recorders from the wreckage.[191][192] An American Remora 6000 remotely operated vehicle (ROV)[i] and operations crew from Phoenix International experienced in the recovery of aircraft for the United States Navy were on board the Île de Sein.[193][194]

Île de Sein arrived at the crash site on 26 April, and during its first dive, the Remora 6000 found the flight data recorder chassis, although without the crash-survivable memory unit.[195][196] On 1 May the memory unit was found and lifted on board the Île de Sein by the ROV.[197] The aircraft's cockpit voice recorder was found on 2 May 2011, and was raised and brought on board the Île de Sein the following day.[198]

On 7 May, the flight recorders, under judicial seal, were taken aboard the French Navy patrol boat La Capricieuse for transfer to the port of Cayenne. From there they were transported by air to the BEA's office in Le Bourget near Paris for data download and analysis. One engine and the avionics bay, containing onboard computers, had also been raised.[199]

By 15 May, all the data from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder had been downloaded.[2]: 20 [200] The data were analysed over the following weeks, and the findings published in the third interim report at the end of July.[201] The entire download was filmed and recorded.[201]

Between 5 May and 3 June 2011, 104 bodies were recovered from the wreckage, bringing the total number of bodies found to 154. Fifty bodies had been previously recovered from the sea.[153][202][203][204] The search ended with the remaining 74 bodies still not recovered.[205]

Investigation and safety improvements edit

The French authorities opened two investigations:

  • A criminal investigation for manslaughter began on 5 June 2009, under the supervision of Investigating Magistrate Sylvie Zimmerman from the Paris High Court (French: Tribunal de Grande Instance).[206] The judge gave the investigation to the National Gendarmerie (French: Gendarmerie nationale), which would conduct it through its aerial transportation division (Air transport police, French: Gendarmerie des transports aériens or GTA) and its forensic research institute (the "National Gendarmerie Institute for Criminal Research", French: Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale FR).[207] As part of the criminal investigation, the DGSE (the external French intelligence agency) examined the names of passengers on board for any possible links to terrorist groups.[208] In March 2011, a French judge filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and Airbus over the crash.[209] The cases against Air France and Airbus were dropped in 2019 and 2011 respectively.[210][211][212]
  • A technical investigation was started, the goal of which was to enhance the safety of future flights. In accordance with the provisions of ICAO Annex 13, the BEA participated in the investigation as representative for the state (country) of manufacture of the Airbus.[213] The Brazilian Air Force's Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center (CENIPA), the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU), the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) also became involved in accordance with these provisions; the NTSB became involved as the representative of the state of manufacture of the General Electric turbine engines installed on the plane, and the other representatives could supply important information. The People's Republic of China, Croatia, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, Norway, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, and Switzerland appointed observers, since citizens of those countries were on board.[214]

On 5 June 2009, the BEA cautioned against premature speculation as to the cause of the crash. At that time, the investigation had established only two facts—the weather near the aircraft's planned route included significant convective cells typical of the equatorial regions, and the speeds measured by the three pitot tubes differed from each other during the last few minutes of the flight.[215]

On 2 July 2009, the BEA released an intermediate report, which described all known facts, and a summary of the visual examination of the rudder and the other parts of the aircraft that had been recovered at that time.[216] According to the BEA, this examination showed:

  • The airliner was likely to have struck the surface of the sea in a normal flight attitude, with a high rate of descent;[j][217][218]
  • No signs of any fires or explosions were found.
  • The airliner did not break up in flight.[219] The report also stresses that the BEA had not had access to the post mortem reports at the time of its writing.[220][221]

On 16 May 2011, Le Figaro reported that the BEA investigators had ruled out an aircraft malfunction as the cause of the crash, according to preliminary information extracted from the FDR.[222] The following day, the BEA issued a press release explicitly describing the Le Figaro report as a "sensationalist publication of non-validated information". The BEA stated that no conclusions had been made, investigations were continuing, and no interim report was expected before the summer.[223] On 18 May, the head of the investigation further stated no major malfunction of the aircraft had been found so far in the data from the flight data recorder, but that minor malfunctions had not been ruled out.[224]

Airspeed inconsistency edit

In the minutes before its disappearance, the aircraft's onboard systems sent a number of messages, via the ACARS, indicating disagreement in the indicated airspeed readings. A spokesperson for the BEA claimed, "the airspeed of the aircraft was unclear" to the pilots[155] and, on 4 June 2009, Airbus issued an Accident Information Telex to operators of all its aircraft reminding pilots of the recommended abnormal and emergency procedures to be taken in the case of unreliable airspeed indication.[225] French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said, "Obviously, the pilots [of Flight 447] did not have the [correct] speed showing, which can lead to two bad consequences for the life of the aircraft: under-speed, which can lead to a stall, and over-speed, which can lead to the aircraft breaking up because it is approaching the speed of sound and the structure of the plane is not made for enduring such speeds".[226]

Pitot tubes edit

Between May 2008 and March 2009, nine incidents involving the temporary loss of airspeed indication appeared in the air safety reports (ASRs) for Air France's A330/A340 fleet. All occurred in cruise between flight levels FL310 and FL380. Further, after the Flight 447 accident, Air France identified six additional incidents that had not been reported on ASRs. These were intended for maintenance aircraft technical logs drawn up by the pilots to describe these incidents only partially, to indicate the characteristic symptoms of the incidents associated with unreliable airspeed readings.[2]: 122 [227] The problems primarily occurred in 2007 on the A320, but awaiting a recommendation from Airbus, Air France delayed installing new pitot tubes on A330/A340 and increased inspection frequencies in these aircraft.[228][229]

When it was introduced in 1994, the Airbus A330 was equipped with pitot tubes, part number 0851GR, manufactured by Goodrich Sensors and Integrated Systems. A 2001 Airworthiness Directive (AD) required these to be replaced with either a later Goodrich design, part number 0851HL, or with pitot tubes made by Thales, part number C16195AA.[230] Air France chose to equip its fleet with the Thales pitot tubes. In September 2007, Airbus recommended that Thales C16195AA pitot tubes should be replaced by Thales model C16195BA to address the problem of water ingress that had been observed.[231] Since it was not an AD, the guidelines allowed the operator to apply the recommendations at its discretion. Air France implemented the change on its A320 fleet, on which the incidents of water ingress were observed, and decided to do so in its A330/340 fleet only when failures started to occur in May 2008.[232][233]

After discussing these issues with the manufacturer, Air France sought a means of reducing these incidents, and Airbus indicated that the new pitot probe designed for the A320 was not designed to prevent cruise-level ice-over. In 2009, tests suggested that the new probe could improve its reliability, prompting Air France to accelerate the replacement program,[233] which started on 29 May. F-GZCP was scheduled to have its pitot tubes replaced as soon as it returned to Paris.[234] By 17 June 2009, Air France had replaced all pitot probes on its A330 type aircraft.[235]

In July 2009, Airbus issued new advice to A330 and A340 operators to exchange Thales pitot tubes for tubes from Goodrich.[236][237][238]

On 12 August 2009, Airbus issued three mandatory service bulletins, requiring that all A330 and A340 aircraft be fitted with two Goodrich 0851HL pitot tubes and one Thales model C16195BA pitot (or, alternatively, three of the Goodrich pitot tubes); Thales model C16195AA pitot tubes were no longer to be used.[239][2]: 216  This requirement was incorporated into ADs issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency on 31 August[239] and by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on 3 September.[240] The replacement was to be completed by 7 January 2010. According to the FAA, in its Federal Register publication, use of the Thales model has resulted in "reports of airspeed indication discrepancies while flying at high altitudes in inclement weather conditions" that "could result in reduced control of the airplane." The FAA further stated that the Thales model probe "has not yet demonstrated the same level of robustness to withstand high-altitude ice crystals as Goodrich pitot probes P/N 0851HL."

On 20 December 2010, Airbus issued a warning to roughly 100 operators of A330, A340-200, and A340-300 aircraft regarding pitot tubes, advising pilots not to re-engage the autopilot following failure of the airspeed indicators.[241][242][243] Safety recommendations issued by BEA for pitot probes design, recommended, "they must be fitted with a heating system designed to prevent any malfunctioning due to icing. Appropriate means must be provided (visual warning directly visible to the crew) to inform the crew of any nonfunctioning of the heating system".[2]: 137 

Findings from the flight data recorder edit

On 27 May 2011, the BEA released an update on its investigation describing the history of the flight as recorded by the FDR. This confirmed what had previously been concluded from post mortem examination of the bodies and debris recovered from the ocean surface; the aircraft had not broken up at altitude, but had fallen into the ocean intact.[219][221] The FDRs also revealed that the aircraft's descent into the sea was not due to mechanical failure or the aircraft being overwhelmed by the weather, but because the flight crew had raised the aircraft's nose, reducing its speed until it entered an aerodynamic stall.[88][244]

While the inconsistent airspeed data caused the disengagement of the autopilot, the reason the pilots lost control of the aircraft had remained a mystery, in particular because pilots would normally try to lower the nose in the event of a stall.[245][246][247] Multiple sensors provide the pitch information and no indication was given that any of them were malfunctioning.[248] One factor may be that since the A330 does not normally accept control inputs that would cause a stall, the pilots were unaware that a stall could happen when the aircraft switched to an alternative mode because of failure of the airspeed indication.[244][k]

In October 2011, a transcript of the CVR was leaked and published in the book Erreurs de Pilotage (Pilot Errors) by Jean Pierre Otelli.[253] The BEA and Air France both condemned the release of this information, with Air France calling it "sensationalized and unverifiable information" that "impairs the memory of the crew and passengers who lost their lives."[254] The BEA subsequently released its final report on the accident, and Appendix 1 contained an official CVR transcript that did not include groups of words deemed to have no bearing on flight.[84]

Third interim report edit

On 29 July 2011, the BEA released a third interim report on safety issues it found in the wake of the crash.[4] It was accompanied by two shorter documents summarizing the interim report[255] and addressing safety recommendations.[256]

The third interim report stated that some new facts had been established. In particular:

  • The pilots had not applied the unreliable-airspeed procedure.
  • The pilot-in-control pulled back on the stick, thus increasing the angle of attack and causing the aircraft to climb rapidly.
  • The pilots apparently did not notice that the aircraft had reached its maximum permissible altitude.
  • The pilots did not read out the available data (vertical velocity, altitude, etc.).
  • The stall warning sounded continuously for 54 seconds.
  • The pilots did not comment on the stall warnings and apparently did not realize that the aircraft was stalled.
  • There was some buffeting associated with the stall.
  • The stall warning deactivates by design when the angle of attack measurements are considered invalid, and this is the case when the airspeed drops below a certain limit.
  • In consequence, the stall warning came on whenever the pilot pushed forward on the stick and then stopped when he pulled back; this happened several times during the stall and this may have confused the pilots.
  • Despite the fact that they were aware that altitude was declining rapidly, the pilots were unable to determine which instruments to trust; all values may have appeared to them to be incoherent.[257]

The BEA assembled a human factors working group to analyze the crew's actions and reactions during the final stages of the flight.[258]

A brief bulletin by Air France indicated, "the misleading stopping and starting of the stall-warning alarm, contradicting the actual state of the aircraft, greatly contributed to the crew's difficulty in analyzing the situation."[259][260]

 
Building 153, the head office of the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) at Le Bourget Airport, where the flight recorders were analysed

Final report edit

On 5 July 2012, the BEA released its final report on the accident. This confirmed the findings of the preliminary reports and provided additional details and recommendations to improve safety. According to the final report,[2] the accident resulted from this succession of major events:

  • Temporary inconsistency between the measured speeds, likely as a result of the obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, caused autopilot disconnection and [flight control mode] reconfiguration to "alternate law (ALT)".
  • The crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path.
  • The crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information.
  • The crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path.
  • The crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall.
  • The crew failed to recognize the aircraft had stalled, and consequently did not make inputs that would have made recovering from the stall possible.[2]: 200 

These events resulted from these major factors in combination:[2]

  • Feedback mechanisms between all those involved (the report identifies manufacturers, operators, flight crews, and regulatory agencies), which made it impossible to identify repeated non-application of the loss of airspeed information procedure, and to ensure that crews were trained in icing of the pitot probes and its consequences.
  • The crew's lack of practical training in manually handling the aircraft both at high altitude and in the event of anomalies of speed indication.
  • The weakening of the two co-pilots' task sharing, both by incomprehension of the situation at the time of autopilot disconnection and by poor management of the "startle effect", leaving them in an emotionally charged state;
  • The cockpit's lack of a clear display of the inconsistencies in airspeed readings identified by the flight computers.
  • The crew's lack of response to the stall warning, whether due to a failure to identify the aural warning, to the transience of the stall warnings that could have been considered spurious, to the absence of any visual information that could confirm that the aircraft was approaching stall after losing the characteristic speeds, to confusing stall-related buffet for overspeed-related buffet, to the indications by the flight director that might have confirmed the crew's mistaken view of their actions, or to difficulty in identifying and understanding the implications of the switch to alternate law, which does not protect the angle of attack.

Independent analyses edit

Before and after the publication of the final report by the BEA in July 2012, many independent analyses and expert opinions were published in the media about the cause of the accident.

Significance of the accident edit

In May 2011, Wil S. Hylton of The New York Times commented that the crash "was easy to bend into myth" because "no other passenger jet in modern history had disappeared so completely—without a Mayday call or a witness or even a trace on radar." Hylton explained that the A330 "was considered to be among the safest" of the passenger aircraft. Hylton added that when "Flight 447 seemed to disappear from the sky, it was tempting to deliver a tidy narrative about the hubris of building a self-flying aircraft, Icarus falling from the sky. Or maybe Flight 447 was the Titanic, an uncrashable ship at the bottom of the sea."[202] Dr. Guy Gratton, an aviation expert from the Flight Safety Laboratory at Brunel University, said, "This is an air accident the likes of which we haven't seen before. Half the accident investigators in the Western world—and in Russia too—are waiting for these results. This has been the biggest investigation since Lockerbie. Put bluntly, big passenger planes do not just fall out of the sky."[261]

Angle-of-attack indication edit

In a July 2011 article in Aviation Week, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger was quoted as saying the crash was a "seminal accident" and suggested that pilots would be able to better handle upsets of this type if they had an indication of the wing's angle of attack (AoA).[262] By contrast, aviation author Captain Bill Palmer has expressed doubts that an AoA indicator would have saved AF447, writing: "as the PF [pilot flying] seemed to be ignoring the more fundamental indicators of pitch and attitude, along with numerous stall warnings, one could question what difference a rarely used AoA gauge would have made".[263]

Following its investigation, the BEA recommended that the European Aviation Safety Agency and the FAA should consider making an AoA indicator on the instrument panel mandatory.[264][needs update] In 2014, the FAA streamlined requirements for AoA indicators for general aviation[265][266] without affecting requirements for commercial aviation.

Human factors and computer interaction edit

On 6 December 2011, Popular Mechanics published an English translation of the analysis of the transcript of the CVR controversially leaked in the book Erreurs de Pilotage.[253] It highlighted the role of the co-pilot in stalling the aircraft, while the flight computer was under alternate law at high altitude. This "simple but persistent" human error was given as the most direct cause of this accident.[244] In the commentary accompanying the article, they also noted that the failure to follow principles of crew resource management was a contributory factor.

The final BEA report points to the human-computer interface (HCI) of the Airbus as a possible factor contributing to the crash. It provides an explanation for most of the pitch-up inputs by the pilot flying, left unexplained in the Popular Mechanics piece: namely that the flight director display was misleading.[267] The pitch-up input at the beginning of the fatal sequence of events appears to be the consequence of an altimeter error. The investigators also pointed to the lack of a clear display of the airspeed inconsistencies, though the computers had identified them. Some systems generated failure messages only about the consequences, but never mentioned the origin of the problem. The investigators recommended a blocked pitot tube should be clearly indicated as such to the crew on the flight displays. The Daily Telegraph pointed out the absence of AoA information, which is important in identifying and preventing a stall.[268] The paper stated, "though angle of attack readings are sent to onboard computers, there are no displays in modern jets to convey this critical information to the crews." Der Spiegel indicated the difficulty the pilots faced in diagnosing the problem: "One alarm after another lit up the cockpit monitors. One after another, the autopilot, the automatic engine control system, and the flight computers shut themselves off."[269] Against this backdrop of confusing information, difficulty with aural cognition (due to heavy buffeting from the storm, as well as the stall) and zero external visibility, the pilots had less than three minutes to identify the problem and take corrective action. The Der Spiegel report asserts that such a crash "could happen again".

In an article in Vanity Fair, William Langewiesche noted that once the AoA was so extreme, the system rejected the data as invalid, and temporarily stopped the stall warnings, but "this led to a perverse reversal that lasted nearly to the impact; each time Bonin happened to lower the nose, rendering the angle of attack marginally less severe, the stall warning sounded again—a negative reinforcement that may have locked him into his pattern of pitching up", which increased the angle of attack and thus aggravated the stall.[44]

Side-stick control issue edit

 
Right-hand side-stick control on an Airbus A380 flight deck (similar to the one installed on A330s)

In April 2012 in The Daily Telegraph, British journalist Nick Ross published a comparison of Airbus and Boeing flight controls; unlike the control yoke used on Boeing flight decks, the Airbus side-stick controls give little visual feedback and no sensory or tactile feedback to the second pilot. The cockpit synthetic voice, however, does give an aural message 'Dual Input' whenever opposite inputs are initiated by the pilots.[255] Ross reasoned that this might in part explain why the PF's [pilot flying] fatal nose-up inputs were not countermanded by his two colleagues.[268][270]

In a July 2012 CBS report, Sullenberger suggested the design of the Airbus cockpit might have been a factor in the accident. The flight controls are not mechanically linked between the two pilot seats, and Robert, the left-seat pilot who believed he had taken over control of the aircraft, was not aware that Bonin continued to hold the stick back, which overrode Robert's own control.[271][272][l]

The BEA final report acknowledged the difficulty for one pilot to observe the side-stick input of the other,[273] but did not identify it as a cause of the accident[274] and made no recommendation related to the side-stick input design.[275]

Fatigue edit

Getting enough sleep is a constant concern for pilots of long-haul flights.[276] Although the BEA could find no "objective" indications that the pilots of Flight 447 were suffering from fatigue,[2]: 100 [277] some exchanges recorded on the CVR, including a remark made by Captain Dubois that he had only slept an hour,[m] could indicate the crew were not well rested before the flight.[278] The co-pilots had spent three nights in Rio de Janeiro, but the BEA was unable to retrieve data regarding their rest and could not determine their activities during the stopover.[2]: 24 [279][280]

Aftermath edit

 
Memorial to the victims of Flight 447 in Rio, an identical monument was erected in Paris at Père Lachaise Cemetery

Shortly after the crash, Air France changed the number of the regular Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight from AF447 to AF445; [281] however, as of December 2023, the number for the route has been changed to AF485, and instead of an Airbus A330, the airline uses a Boeing 777-300ER.[282] As of January 2024, Air France is beginning to phase out their entire Airbus A330 fleet, to be replaced with newer, and more energy efficient Airbus A350-900, and they are all to be completely retired by 2030.[283]

Six months after the crash of Air France Flight 447, on 30 November 2009, Air France Flight 445 operated by another Airbus A330-203 (registered F-GZCK) made a mayday call because of severe turbulence around the same area and at a similar time to when Flight 447 was lost. Because the pilots could not obtain immediate permission from air traffic controllers (ATCs) to descend to a less turbulent altitude, the mayday was to alert other aircraft in the vicinity that the flight had deviated from its allocated flight level. This is standard contingency procedure when changing altitude without direct ATC authorization. After 30 minutes of moderate-to-severe turbulence, the flight continued normally. The flight landed safely in Paris 6 hours and 40 minutes after the mayday call.[284][285]

Inaccurate airspeed indicators edit

Several cases have occurred in which inaccurate airspeed information led to flight incidents on the A330 and A340. Two of those incidents involved pitot probes.[n] In the first incident, an Air France A340-300 (F-GLZL) en route from Tokyo to Paris experienced an event at 31,000 feet (9,400 m), in which the airspeed was incorrectly reported and the autopilot automatically disengaged. Bad weather and obstructed drainage holes in all three pitot probes were subsequently found to be the cause.[286] In the second incident, an Air France A340-300 (F-GLZN) en route from Paris to New York encountered turbulence followed by the autoflight systems going offline, warnings over the accuracy of the reported airspeed, and 2 minutes of stall alerts.[286]

Another incident on TAM Flight 8091, from Miami to Rio de Janeiro on 21 May 2009, involving an A330-200, showed a sudden drop of outside air temperature, then loss of air data, the ADIRS, autopilot and autothrust.[287] The aircraft descended 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) before being manually recovered using backup instruments. The NTSB also examined a similar 23 June 2009 incident on a Northwest Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo,[287] concluding in both cases that the aircraft operating manual was sufficient to prevent a dangerous situation from occurring.[288]

Following the crash of Air France 447, other Airbus A330 operators studied their internal flight records to seek patterns. Delta Air Lines analyzed the data of Northwest Airlines flights that occurred before the two companies merged and found a dozen incidents in which at least one of an A330's pitot tubes had briefly stopped working when the aircraft was flying through the ITCZ, the same location where Air France 447 crashed.[289][290]

Legal cases edit

Air France and Airbus have been investigated for manslaughter since 2011, but in 2019, prosecutors recommended dropping the case against Airbus and charging Air France with manslaughter and negligence, concluding, "the airline was aware of technical problems with a key airspeed monitoring instrument on its planes but failed to train pilots to resolve them".[210] The case against Airbus was dropped on 22 July the same year.[211] The case against Air France was dropped in September 2019 when magistrates said, "there were not enough grounds to prosecute".[212] However, in 2021, a public prosecutor in Paris requested to have Airbus and Air France tried in a court of law.[291] In April, it was announced that both companies would be prosecuted over the crash. Lawyers for Airbus stated they would lodge an immediate appeal against the decision.[292] The trial opened on 10 October 2022, with Airbus and Air France both being charged with involuntary manslaughter.[293] Both companies pleaded not guilty to the charges.[293][294][295] On 7 December, prosecutors announced that they would not seek conviction of either company for manslaughter as they were unable to prove them guilty, and recommended acquitting both companies. Families and friends of the victims were outraged by the decision.[296][297][298] On 17 April 2023, Airbus and Air France were both acquitted of manslaughter.[299][300][301] However, 10 days later, a French prosecutor lodged an appeal against the verdict.[302]

In popular culture edit

A one-hour documentary entitled Lost: The Mystery of Flight 447 detailing an early independent hypothesis about the crash was produced by Darlow Smithson in 2010 for Nova and the BBC. Using the then-sparse publicly available evidence and information, and without data from the black boxes, a critical chain of events was postulated, employing the expertise of an expert pilot, an expert accident investigator, an aviation meteorologist, and an aircraft structural engineer.[303][304][305][306]

On 16 September 2012, Channel 4 in the UK presented Fatal Flight 447: Chaos in the Cockpit, which showed data from the black boxes including an in-depth re-enactment. It was produced by Minnow Films.[307] Similar presentation was made by 60 Minutes Australia in 2014.[308]

The aviation-disaster documentary television series Mayday (also known as Air Crash Investigation and Air Emergency) produced a 45-minute episode titled "Air France 447: Vanished", which aired on 15 April 2013 in Great Britain and 17 May 2013 in the U.S.[309]

An article about the crash by American author and pilot William Langewiesche, entitled "Should Airplanes Be Flying Themselves?", was published by Vanity Fair in October 2014.[44]

A 99% Invisible podcast episode about the flight, entitled "Children of the Magenta (Automation Paradox, pt. 1)", was released on 23 June 2015 as the first of a two-part story about automation.[310]

In November 2015, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor David Mindell discussed the Air France Flight 447 tragedy in the opening segment of an EconTalk podcast dedicated to the ideas in Mindell's 2015 book Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy.[311] Mindell said the crash illustrated a "failed handoff", with insufficient warning, from the aircraft's autopilot to the human pilots.[312]

The Rooster Teeth–produced podcast Black Box Down covered the flight in an episode titled "Stalling 38,000 Feet Over The Atlantic" on 30 July 2020.[313]

On 9 September 2021, the Science Channel Documentary Deadly Engineering covered the crash on Season 3 Episode 1 : "Catastrophes in the Sky".[314]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The 2 in the suffix denotes that it was a -200 series variant of the A330; 03 denotes that it was equipped with General Electric CF6-80E1A3 engines.
  2. ^ AF is the IATA airline designator and AFR is the ICAO airline designator
  3. ^ The 2 in the suffix denotes that it was a -200 series variant of the A330; 03 denotes that it was equipped with General Electric CF6-80E1A3 engines.
  4. ^ At the time of its disappearance, F-GZCP was using satellite communication, its position over the mid-Atlantic being too far from land-based receivers for VHF to be effective.
  5. ^ On the map, page 13 the coordinates in BEA's first interim report[69] with the information on page 13 is referenced as the "last known position" (French: Dernière position connue, "last known position").
  6. ^ More precisely: that after one of the three independent systems had been diagnosed as faulty and excluded from consideration, the two remaining systems disagreed.
  7. ^ 850 from its Navy and 250 Air Force.
  8. ^ The areas showing detailed bathymetry were mapped using multibeam bathymetric sonar. The areas showing very generalized bathymetry were mapped using high-density satellite altimetry.
  9. ^ The Remora 6000 remotely operated vehicle was designed and constructed by Phoenix International Holdings, Inc. of Largo, Maryland, United States.
  10. ^ The airliner was considered to be in a nearly level attitude, but with a high rate of descent when it collided with the surface of the ocean. That impact caused high deceleration and compression forces on the airliner, as shown by the deformations that were found in the recovered wreckage.
  11. ^ Some reports have described this as a deep stall,[249] but this was a steady state conventional stall.[250] A deep stall is associated with an aircraft with a T-tail, but this aircraft does not have a T-tail.[251] The BEA described it as a "sustained stall".[252]
  12. ^ There was a similar side-stick control issue in the Air Asia Flight 8501 accident.
  13. ^ "I didn't sleep enough last night. One hour – it's not enough right now." "Cette nuit, j'ai pas assez dormi. Une heure, c'était pas assez tout à l'heure."
  14. ^ For an explanation of how airspeed is measured, see air data reference.

Works cited edit

Official sources (in English)

  • BEA (France) (2 July 2009), Interim report on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris (PDF), translated by BEA from French, Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, OCLC 821207217, (PDF) from the original on 3 May 2011, retrieved 13 March 2017
  • BEA (France) (30 November 2009), Interim Report n°2 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris (PDF), translated by BEA from French, Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, ISBN 978-2-11-098715-0, OCLC 827738411, (PDF) from the original on 3 May 2011, retrieved 12 March 2017
  • BEA (France) (29 July 2011), Interim report n °3 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris. (PDF), translated by BEA from French, Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, OCLC 827738487, (PDF) from the original on 19 September 2011, retrieved 12 March 2017
  • BEA (France) (5 July 2012), Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris (PDF), translated by BEA from French, Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2012, retrieved 12 March 2017
  • BEA (France) (5 July 2012), "Appendix 1 CVR Transcript" (PDF), Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris, translated by BEA from French, Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, (PDF) from the original on 21 September 2013, retrieved 11 July 2012
  • BEA (France) (5 July 2012), "Appendix 2 FDR Chronology" (PDF), Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris (PDF), translated by BEA from French, Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, (PDF) from the original on 21 September 2013, retrieved 12 March 2017

Official sources (in French) – the French version is the report of record.

  • BEA (France) (2 July 2009), Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 à l'Airbus A330-203 immatriculé F-GZCP exploité par Air France vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro-Paris f-cp090601e : Rapport d'étape [Interim report on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris] (PDF) (in French), Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, ISBN 978-2-11-098702-0, OCLC 816349880, (PDF) from the original on 31 May 2011, retrieved 13 March 2017
  • BEA (France) (30 November 2009), Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 à l'avion Airbus A330-203 immatriculé F-GZCP exploité par Air France Vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro-Paris : rapport d'étape n° 2 [Interim Report n°2 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris] (PDF) (in French), Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, ISBN 978-2-11-098713-6, OCLC 762531678, (PDF) from the original on 31 May 2011, retrieved 13 March 2017
  • BEA (France) (29 July 2011), Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 à l'avion Airbus A330-203 immatriculé F-GZCP exploité par Air France Vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro-Paris : rapport d'étape n° 3 [Interim Report n°3 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris] (PDF) (in French), Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, (PDF) from the original on 14 August 2011, retrieved 13 March 2017
  • BEA (France) (5 July 2012), Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 à l'Airbus A330-203 immatriculé F-GZCP exploité par Air France vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris Rapport final [Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris] (PDF) (in French), Le Bourget: BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2012, retrieved 12 March 2017
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Other sources

  • Otelli, Jean-Pierre (2011). Erreurs de pilotage: Tome 5 [Pilot Error: Volume 5] (in French). Levallois-Perret: Altipresse. ISBN 979-10-90465-03-9. OCLC 780308849.
  • Rapoport, Roger (2011). The Rio/Paris Crash: Air France 447. Lexographic Press. ISBN 978-0-9847142-0-9.
  • Malmquist, Capt Shem & Rapport, Roger (2017). Angle of Attack: Air France 447 and the future of Aviation Safety. Lexographic Press. ISBN 978-0-9847142-6-1
  • Palmer, Bill (2013). Understanding Air France 447 (paperback). William Palmer. ISBN 978-0989785723.

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    2 h 10 min 08: CAS changes from 274 kn (507 km/h) to 156 kn (289 km/h). The CAS ISIS changes from 275 kn (509 km/h) to 139 kn (257 km/h) then goes back up to 223 kn (413 km/h). The Mach changes from 0.80 to 0.26.
    2 h 10 min 09: CAS is 52 kn (96 km/h). The CAS ISIS stabilises at 270 kn (500 km/h) for four seconds.
    2 h 10 min 34: CAS increases from 105 kn (194 km/h) to 223 kn (413 km/h) in two seconds. The CAS ISIS is 115 kn (213 km/h).
    2 h 11 min 07: The CAS ISIS changes from 129 kn (239 km/h) to 183 kn (339 km/h). The CAS is at 184 kn (341 km/h).
    FDR graph parameters (in French):
    – 2 h 10 min 04 to 2 h 10 min 26
    – 2 h 10 min 26 to 2 h 10 min 50
    – 2 h 10 min 50 to 2 h 11 min 47
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April 27, 2024
france, flight, af447, afr447, scheduled, international, passenger, flight, from, janeiro, brazil, paris, france, june, 2009, inconsistent, airspeed, indications, pilots, inadvertently, stalling, airbus, a330, serving, flight, they, failed, recover, plane, fro. Air France Flight 447 AF447 AFR447 b was a scheduled international passenger flight from Rio de Janeiro Brazil to Paris France On 1 June 2009 inconsistent airspeed indications led to the pilots inadvertently stalling the Airbus A330 serving the flight They failed to recover the plane from the stall and the plane crashed into the mid Atlantic Ocean at 02 14 UTC killing all 228 passengers and crew on board 2 Air France Flight 447F GZCP the aircraft involved in the accident landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport in March 2007AccidentDate1 June 2009SummaryEntered high altitude stall impacted oceanSiteAtlantic Ocean near waypoint TASIL 1 9 3 03 57 N 30 33 42 W 3 06583 N 30 56167 W 3 06583 30 56167AircraftAircraft typeAirbus A330 203 a OperatorAir FranceIATA flight No AF447ICAO flight No AFR447Call signAIRFRANS 447RegistrationF GZCPFlight originRio de Janeiro Galeao International AirportDestinationParis Charles de Gaulle AirportOccupants228Passengers216Crew12Fatalities228Survivors0 The Brazilian Navy recovered the first major wreckage and two bodies from the sea within five days of the accident but the investigation by France s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety BEA was initially hampered because the aircraft s flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011 nearly two years after the accident 3 The BEA s final report released at a press conference on 5 July 2012 concluded that the aircraft suffered temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements likely resulting from ice crystals obstructing the aircraft s pitot tubes which caused the autopilot to disconnect The crew reacted incorrectly to the abnormality causing the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stall which the pilots failed to correct 2 79 4 7 5 The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air France as well as the deadliest aviation accident involving the Airbus A330 6 Contents 1 Aircraft 2 Passengers and crew 2 1 Notable passengers 3 Accident 3 1 Automated messages 3 2 Weather conditions 4 Search and recovery 4 1 Surface search 4 2 Underwater search 4 3 2011 search and recovery 5 Investigation and safety improvements 5 1 Airspeed inconsistency 5 1 1 Pitot tubes 5 2 Findings from the flight data recorder 5 3 Third interim report 5 4 Final report 6 Independent analyses 6 1 Significance of the accident 6 2 Angle of attack indication 6 3 Human factors and computer interaction 6 4 Side stick control issue 6 5 Fatigue 7 Aftermath 7 1 Inaccurate airspeed indicators 7 2 Legal cases 8 In popular culture 9 See also 10 Notes 11 Works cited 12 References 13 External links 13 1 Press releasesAircraft editThe aircraft involved in the accident was a 4 year old Airbus A330 203 c with manufacturer serial number 660 registered as F GZCP Its first flight was on 25 February 2005 and it was delivered 2 months later to the airline on 18 April 2005 At the time of the crash it was Air France s newest A330 7 8 The aircraft was powered by two General Electric CF6 80E1A3 engines with a maximum thrust of 68 530 or 60 400 lbf 304 8 or 268 7 kN take off max continuous 9 giving it a cruise speed range of Mach 0 82 0 86 470 493 knots or 870 913 kilometres per hour or 541 567 miles per hour at 35 000 feet 11 000 m of altitude and a range of 12 500 km 6 700 nmi 7 800 mi The aircraft underwent a major overhaul on 16 April 2009 and at the time of the accident had accumulated about 18 870 flying hours 10 Passengers and crew editFinal tally of passenger nationalities Nationality Passengers Crew Total Argentina 11 1 0 1 Austria 12 1 0 1 Belgium 13 1 0 1 Brazil 58 1 59 Canada 1 0 1 China 14 9 0 9 Croatia 15 1 0 1 Denmark 1 0 1 Estonia 16 1 0 1 France 61 11 72 Gabon 17 1 0 1 Germany 18 26 0 26 Hungary 4 0 4 Iceland 19 1 0 1 Ireland 20 3 0 3 Italy 21 9 0 9 Lebanon 3 0 3 Morocco 22 3 0 3 Netherlands 23 1 0 1 Norway 24 3 0 3 Philippines 25 1 0 1 Poland 26 2 0 2 Romania 27 1 0 1 Russia 28 1 0 1 Slovakia 29 3 0 3 South Africa 30 1 0 1 South Korea 31 1 0 1 Spain 32 2 0 2 Sweden 33 1 2 0 1 2 Switzerland 34 6 0 6 Turkey 35 1 0 1 United Kingdom 36 5 0 5 United States 37 2 0 2 Total 216 12 228 Notes Nationalities shown are as stated by Air France on 1 June 2009 38 Attributing nationality was complicated by the holding of multiple citizenship by several passengers Passengers who had citizenship in one country but were attributed to another country by Air France are indicated with parentheses The aircraft was carrying 216 passengers 3 aircrew and 9 cabin crew in two cabins of service 6 39 40 Among the 216 passengers were 126 men 82 women and 8 children including 1 infant 41 There were three pilots on the flight 2 24 29 The captain 58 year old Marc Dubois PNF pilot not flying 2 21 had joined Air France in February 1988 from rival French domestic carrier Air Inter which later merged into Air France 42 and had 10 988 flying hours of which 6 258 were as captain including 1 700 hours on the Airbus A330 he had carried out 16 rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330 A340 division in 2007 43 The relief first officer co pilot in left seat 37 year old David Robert PNF had joined Air France in July 1998 and had 6 547 flying hours of which 4 479 hours were on the Airbus A330 he had carried out 39 rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330 A340 division in 2002 Robert had graduated from Ecole nationale de l aviation civile one of the elite Grandes Ecoles and had transitioned from a pilot to a management job at the airline s operations center He served as a pilot on this flight to maintain his flying credentials 44 43 The first officer co pilot in right seat 32 year old Pierre Cedric Bonin PF pilot flying had joined Air France in October 2003 and had 2 936 flight hours of which 807 hours were on the Airbus A330 he had carried out five rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330 A340 division in 2008 43 His wife Isabelle a physics teacher was also on board 45 46 47 48 49 Of the 12 crew members including aircrew and cabin crew 11 were French and 1 was Brazilian 50 The majority of passengers were French Brazilian or German citizens 51 52 38 The passengers included business and holiday travelers 53 Air France established a crisis center 54 at Terminal 2D for the 60 to 70 relatives and friends who arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport to pick up arriving passengers but many of the passengers on Flight 447 were connecting to other destinations worldwide In the days that followed Air France contacted close to 2 000 people who were related to or friends of the victims 55 On 20 June 2009 Air France announced that each victim s family would be paid roughly 17 500 in initial compensation 56 Notable passengers edit Prince Pedro Luiz of Orleans Braganca third in succession to the abolished throne of Brazil and grandnephew of Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg 57 58 He had dual Brazilian Belgian citizenship He was returning home to Luxembourg from a visit to his relatives in Rio de Janeiro 59 60 Giambattista Lenzi member of the Regional Council of Trentino Alto Adige 61 Silvio Barbato composer and former conductor of the symphony orchestras of the Claudio Santoro National Theater in Brasilia and the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Theatre he was en route to Kyiv for engagements there 62 63 Octavio Augusto Ceva Antunes professor of chemistry and pharmaceutics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro 64 Fatma Ceren Necipoglu Turkish classical harpist and academic of Anadolu University in Eskisehir she was returning home via Paris after performing at the fourth Rio Harp Festival 65 Izabela Maria Furtado Kestler professor of German studies at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro 66 Pablo Dreyfus from Argentina campaigner for controlling illegal arms and the illegal drugs trade 67 Accident edit nbsp Rio de Janeiro22 29 31 MayFernando de Noronha01 33 1 JuneLast known positionN2 98 W30 5902 10 1 JuneParisExpected at 09 03 1 June nbsp Approximate flight path of AF 447 The solid red line shows the actual route The dashed line indicates the planned route beginning with the position of the last transmission heard All times are UTC The aircraft departed from Rio de Janeiro Galeao International Airport on 31 May 2009 at 19 29 Brazilian Standard Time 22 29 UTC 2 21 with a scheduled arrival at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11 03 Central European Summer Time 09 03 UTC the following day estimated flight time of 10 34 68 Voice contact with the aircraft was lost around 01 35 UTC 3 hours and 6 minutes after departure The last message reported that the aircraft had passed waypoint INTOL 1 21 39 S 32 49 53 W 1 36083 S 32 83139 W 1 36083 32 83139 located 565 km 351 mi 305 nmi off Natal on Brazil s north eastern coast 69 The aircraft left Brazilian Atlantic radar surveillance at 01 49 UTC 2 49 70 and entered a communication dead zone 44 2 failed verification The Airbus A330 is designed to be flown by two pilots but the 13 hour duty time the total flight duration as well as preflight preparation required for the Rio Paris route exceeded the 10 hours permitted before a pilot had to take a break as dictated by Air France s procedures To comply with these procedures Flight 447 was crewed by three pilots a captain and two first officers 71 With three pilots on board each pilot could take a break in the A330 s rest cabin located behind the cockpit 72 In accordance with common practice Captain Dubois sent one of the co pilots for the first rest period with the intention of taking the second break himself 73 At 01 55 UTC he woke up First Officer Robert and said he s going to take my place After attending the briefing between the two co pilots the captain left the cockpit to rest at 02 01 46 UTC At 02 06 UTC the pilot warned the cabin crew that they were about to enter an area of turbulence About two to three minutes later the aircraft encountered icing conditions The cockpit voice recorder CVR recorded sounds akin to hail or graupel on the outside of the aircraft and ice crystals began to accumulate in the pitot tubes which measure airspeed 74 Bonin the pilot flying turned the aircraft slightly to the left and decreased its speed from Mach 0 82 to 0 80 which was the recommended speed to penetrate turbulence The engine anti ice system was also turned on 75 nbsp The aircraft s vertical stabilizer after its recovery from the ocean At 02 10 05 UTC the autopilot disengaged most likely because the pitot tubes had iced over and the aircraft transitioned from normal law to alternate law 2 ALT2 76 The engines autothrust systems disengaged three seconds later The autopilot disconnect warning was heard on the CVR Bonin took manual control of the aircraft Without the autopilot turbulence caused the aircraft to start to roll to the right and Bonin reacted by deflecting his side stick to the left One consequence of the change to ALT2 was an increase in the aircraft s sensitivity to roll and the pilot overcorrected During the next 30 seconds the aircraft rolled alternately left and right as he adjusted to the altered handling characteristics of the aircraft 77 At the same time he abruptly pulled back on his side stick raising the nose This action was unnecessary and excessive under the circumstances 78 The aircraft s stall warning briefly sounded twice because the angle of attack tolerance was exceeded and the aircraft s indicated airspeed dropped sharply from 274 knots 507 km h 315 mph to 52 knots 96 km h 60 mph The aircraft s angle of attack increased and the aircraft subsequently began to climb above its cruising altitude of 35 000 ft FL350 During this ascent the aircraft attained vertical speeds well in excess of the typical rate of climb for the Airbus A330 which usually ascend at rates no greater than 2000 feet per minute 10 m s The aircraft experienced a peak vertical speed close to 7 000 feet per minute 36 m s 130 km h 77 which occurred as Bonin brought the rolling movements under control At 02 10 34 UTC after displaying incorrectly for half a minute the left side instruments recorded a sharp rise in airspeed to 223 knots 413 km h 257 mph as did the integrated standby instrument system ISIS 33 seconds later 79 The right side instruments were not recorded by the flight data recorder The icing event had lasted for just over a minute 80 81 2 198 82 yet Bonin continued to make nose up inputs The trimmable horizontal stabilizer THS moved from 3 to 13 nose up in about one minute and remained in the latter position until the end of the flight At 02 11 10 UTC the aircraft had climbed to its maximum altitude around 38 000 feet 11 582 m At this point the aircraft s angle of attack was 16 and the engine thrust levers were in the fully forward takeoff go around TOGA detent As the aircraft began to descend the angle of attack rapidly increased toward 30 A second consequence of the reconfiguration into ALT2 was that the stall protection no longer operated whereas in normal law the aircraft s flight management computers would have acted to prevent such a high angle of attack 83 The wings lost lift and the aircraft began to stall 4 page needed Confused Bonin exclaimed I don t have control of the airplane any more now and two seconds later I don t have control of the airplane at all 43 Robert responded to this by saying controls to the left and took over control of the aircraft 84 45 He pushed his side stick forward to lower the nose and recover from the stall however Bonin was still pulling his side stick back The inputs cancelled each other out and triggered an audible dual input warning At 02 11 40 UTC Captain Dubois re entered the cockpit after being summoned by Robert 45 The angle of attack had then reached 40 and the aircraft had descended to 35 000 feet 10 668 m with the engines running at almost 100 N1 the rotational speed of the front intake fan which delivers most of a turbofan engine s thrust The stall warnings stopped as all airspeed indications were now considered invalid by the aircraft s computer because of the high angle of attack 85 The aircraft had its nose above the horizon but was descending steeply Roughly 20 seconds later at 02 12 UTC Bonin decreased the aircraft s pitch slightly Airspeed indications became valid and the stall warning sounded again it then sounded intermittently for the remaining duration of the flight stopping only when the pilots increased the aircraft s nose up pitch From there until the end of the flight the angle of attack never dropped below 35 From the time the aircraft stalled until its impact with the ocean the engines were primarily developing either 100 N1 or TOGA thrust though they were briefly spooled down to about 50 percent N1 on two occasions The engines always responded to commands and were developing in excess of 100 percent N1 when the flight ended Robert responded to Dubois by saying We ve lost all control of the aeroplane we don t understand anything we ve tried everything 45 Soon after this Robert said to himself climb four consecutive times Bonin heard this and replied But I ve been at maximum nose up for a while When Captain Dubois heard this he realized Bonin was causing the stall and shouted No no no don t climb No No No 86 45 When Robert heard this he told Bonin to give him control of the airplane 2 and Bonin initially obliged 45 86 2 The aircraft was now too low to recover from the stall Robert pushed his side stick forward to try to regain lift in order to get out of the stall however shortly thereafter the ground proximity warning system sounded an alarm warning the crew about the aircraft s imminent crash with the ocean In response Bonin without informing his colleagues pulled his side stick all the way back again 45 2 and said We re going to crash This can t be true But what s happening 86 45 2 87 43 The last recording on the CVR was Dubois saying ten degrees pitch attitude Both flight recorders stopped recording at 02 14 28 UTC 3 hours and 45 minutes after takeoff At that point the aircraft s ground speed was recorded as 107 knots 198 km h 123 mph and that the aircraft was descending at 10 912 feet per minute 55 43 m s 108 knots 200 km h 124 mph of vertical speed Its pitch was 16 2 nose up with a roll angle of 5 3 to the left During its descent the aircraft had turned more than 180 to the right to a compass heading of 270 The aircraft remained stalled during its entire 3 minute 30 second descent from 38 000 feet 12 000 m 88 The aircraft struck the ocean belly first at a speed of 152 knots 282 km h 175 mph comprising vertical and horizontal components of 108 knots 200 km h 124 mph and 107 knots 198 km h 123 mph respectively All 228 passengers and crew on board died on impact from extreme trauma and the aircraft was destroyed 89 2 87 Automated messages edit Air France s A330s are equipped with a communications system Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System ACARS which enables them to transmit data messages via VHF or satellite d ACARS can be used by the aircraft s on board computers to send messages automatically and F GZCP transmitted a position report about every 10 minutes Its final position report at 02 10 34 gave the aircraft s coordinates as 2 59 N 30 35 W 2 98 N 30 59 W 2 98 30 59 e In addition to the routine position reports F GZCP s centralized maintenance system sent a series of messages via ACARS in the minutes immediately prior to its disappearance 90 91 92 These messages sent to prepare maintenance workers on the ground prior to arrival were transmitted between 02 10 UTC and 02 15 UTC 93 and consisted of five failure reports and 19 warnings 94 95 96 97 nbsp Recife 8 June 2009 Captain Tabosa shows the map with the location of the remains of the Airbus A330 203 Among the ACARS transmissions at 02 10 is one message that indicates a fault in the pitot static system 93 97 Bruno Sinatti president of Alter Air France s third biggest pilots union stated Piloting becomes very difficult near impossible without reliable speed data 98 The 12 warning messages with the same time code indicate that the autopilot and autothrust system had disengaged that the traffic collision avoidance system was in fault mode and flight mode went from normal law to alternate law ALT 99 100 The remainder of the messages occurred from 02 11 UTC to 02 14 UTC containing a fault message for an air data inertial reference unit and ISIS 100 101 At 02 12 UTC a warning message NAV ADR DISAGREE indicated that a disagreement existed between the three independent air data systems f At 02 13 UTC a fault message for the flight management guidance and envelope computer was sent 102 One of the two final messages transmitted at 02 14 UTC was a warning referring to the air data reference system the other ADVISORY was a cabin vertical speed warning indicating that the aircraft was descending at a high rate 90 103 104 105 Weather conditions edit Weather conditions in the mid Atlantic were normal for the time of year and included a broad band of thunderstorms along the Intertropical Convergence Zone ITCZ 106 A meteorological analysis of the area surrounding the flight path showed a mesoscale convective system extending to an altitude of around 50 000 feet 15 000 m above the Atlantic Ocean before Flight 447 disappeared 107 108 109 110 During its final hour Flight 447 encountered areas of light turbulence 111 Commercial air transport crews routinely encounter this type of storm in this area 112 With the aircraft under the control of its automated systems one of the main tasks occupying the cockpit crew was that of monitoring the progress of the flight through the ITCZ using the on board weather radar to avoid areas of significant turbulence 113 Twelve other flights had recently shared more or less the same route that Flight 447 was using at the time of the accident 114 115 Search and recovery edit nbsp Brigadier Cardoso speaks to the media about the search for the crashed aircraft Surface search edit Flight 447 was due to pass from Brazilian airspace into Senegalese airspace around 02 20 UTC on 1 June and then into Cape Verdean airspace at roughly 03 45 Shortly after 04 00 when the flight had failed to contact air traffic control in either Senegal or Cape Verde the controller in Senegal attempted to contact the aircraft When he received no response he asked the crew of another Air France flight AF459 to try to contact AF447 this also met with no success 116 After further attempts to contact Flight 447 were unsuccessful an aerial search for the missing Airbus commenced from both sides of the Atlantic Brazilian Air Force aircraft from the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha and French reconnaissance aircraft based in Dakar Senegal led the search 41 They were assisted by a Casa 235 maritime patrol aircraft from Spain 117 and a United States Navy Lockheed Martin P 3 Orion anti submarine warfare and maritime patrol aircraft 118 119 By early afternoon on 1 June officials with Air France and the French government had already presumed the aircraft had been lost with no survivors An Air France spokesperson told L Express that no hope for survivors remained 120 121 and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced almost no chance existed for anyone to have survived 122 On 2 June at 15 20 UTC a Brazilian Air Force Embraer R 99A spotted wreckage and signs of oil possibly jet fuel strewn along a 5 km 3 mi 3 nmi band 650 km 400 mi 350 nmi north east of Fernando de Noronha Island near the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago The sighted wreckage included an aircraft seat an orange buoy a barrel and white pieces and electrical conductors 123 124 Later that day after meeting with relatives of the Brazilians on the aircraft Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim announced that the Air Force believed the wreckage was from Flight 447 125 126 Brazilian vice president Jose Alencar acting as president since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was out of the country declared three days of official mourning 126 127 nbsp Lt Col Henry Munhoz describes the recovery of Airbus A330 wreckage from the ocean Also on 2 June two French Navy vessels the frigate Ventose and helicopter carrier Mistral were en route to the suspected crash site Other ships sent to the site included the French research vessel Pourquoi Pas equipped with two minisubmarines able to descend to 6 000 m 20 000 ft 128 129 since the area of the Atlantic in which the aircraft went down was thought to be as deep as 4 700 m 15 400 ft 130 131 On 3 June the first Brazilian Navy the Marinha do Brasil or MB ship the patrol boat Grajau reached the area in which the first debris was spotted The Brazilian Navy sent a total of five ships to the debris site the frigate Constituicao and the corvette Caboclo were scheduled to reach the area on 4 June the frigate Bosisio on 6 June and the replenishment oiler Almirante Gastao Motta on 7 June 132 133 Early on 6 June 2009 five days after Flight 447 disappeared two male bodies the first to be recovered from the crashed aircraft were brought on board the Caboclo 134 along with a seat a nylon backpack containing a computer and vaccination card and a leather briefcase containing a boarding pass for the Air France flight Initially media including The Boston Globe the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune cited unnamed investigators in their reporting that the recovered bodies were naked which implied the plane had broken up at high altitude 135 However the notion that the aircraft fragmented while airborne ultimately was refuted by investigators 136 At this point on the evidence of the recovered bodies and materials investigators confirmed the plane had crashed killing everyone on board 137 138 The following day 7 June search crews recovered the Airbus s vertical stabilizer the first major piece of wreckage to be discovered Pictures of this part being lifted onto the Constituicao became a poignant symbol of the loss of the Air France craft 1 page needed 139 nbsp The bodies found in the ocean were transferred to the morgue in Brazil for autopsy and identification The search and recovery effort reached its peak over the next week or so as the number of personnel mobilized by the Brazilian military exceeded 1100 g 140 Fifteen aircraft including two helicopters were devoted to the search mission 141 The Brazilian Air Force Embraer R99 flew for more than 100 hours and electronically scanned more than a million square kilometers of ocean 142 Other aircraft involved in the search scanned visually 320 000 square kilometres 120 000 sq mi 93 000 sq nmi of ocean and were used to direct Navy vessels involved in the recovery effort 140 nbsp Seat map showing locations of the recovered bodies during the 2009 search operations By 16 June 2009 50 bodies had been recovered from a wide area of the ocean 143 144 145 They were transported to shore first by the frigates Constituicao and Bosisio to the islands of Fernando de Noronha and thereafter by air to Recife for identification 145 146 147 148 Pathologists identified all 50 bodies recovered from the crash site including that of the captain by using dental records and fingerprints 149 150 151 The search teams logged the time and location of every find in a database which by the time the search ended on 26 June catalogued 640 items of debris from the aircraft 143 The BEA documented the timeline of discoveries in its first interim report 152 153 154 Underwater search edit On 5 June 2009 the French nuclear submarine Emeraude was dispatched to the crash zone arriving in the area on the 10th Its mission was to assist in the search for the missing flight recorders or black boxes that might be located at great depth 155 The submarine would use its sonar to listen for the ultrasonic signal emitted by the black boxes pingers 156 covering 13 sq mi 34 km2 9 8 sq nmi per day The Emeraude was to work with the mini sub Nautile which can descend to the ocean floor The French submarines would be aided by two U S underwater audio devices capable of picking up signals at a depth of 20 000 ft 6 100 m 157 nbsp Colour bathymetry relief map of the part of Atlantic Ocean into which Air France Flight 447 crashed Image shows two different data sets with different resolution h Following the end of the search for bodies the search continued for the Airbus s black boxes the Cockpit Voice Recorder CVR and the Flight Data Recorder FDR French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety BEA chief Paul Louis Arslanian said that he was not optimistic about finding them since they might have been under as much as 3 000 m 9 800 ft of water and the terrain under this portion of the ocean was very rugged 158 Investigators were hoping to find the aircraft s lower aft section for that was where the recorders were located 159 Although France had never recovered a flight recorder from such depths 158 there was precedent for such an operation in 1988 an independent contractor recovered the CVR of South African Airways Flight 295 from a depth of 4 900 m 16 100 ft in a search area of between 80 and 250 square nautical miles 270 and 860 km2 110 and 330 sq mi 160 161 The Air France flight recorders were fitted with water activated acoustic underwater locator beacons or pingers which should have remained active for at least 30 days giving searchers that much time to locate the origin of the signals 162 France requested two towed pinger locator hydrophones from the United States Navy to help find the aircraft 128 The French nuclear submarine and two French contracted ships the Fairmount Expedition and the Fairmount Glacier towing the U S Navy listening devices trawled a search area with a radius of 80 kilometres 50 mi centred on the aircraft s last known position 163 164 By mid July recovery of the black boxes still had not been announced The finite beacon battery life meant that as the time since the crash elapsed the likelihood of location diminished 165 In late July the search for the black boxes entered its second phase with a French research vessel resuming the search using a towed sonar array 166 The second phase of the search ended on 20 August without finding wreckage within a 75 km 47 mi 40 nmi radius of the last position as reported at 02 10 167 nbsp East west cross section of Atlantic Ocean portion in which Air France Flight 447 crashed showing depth of the sea floor The vertical scale is exaggerated by a factor of 100 relative to the horizontal The third phase of the search for the recorders lasted from 2 April until 24 May 2010 168 169 170 and was conducted by two ships the Anne Candies and the Seabed Worker The Anne Candies towed a U S Navy sonar array while the Seabed Worker operated three robot submarines AUV ABYSS a REMUS AUV type 168 171 172 173 Air France and Airbus jointly funded the third phase of the search 174 175 The search covered an area of 6 300 square kilometres 2 400 sq mi 1 800 sq nmi mostly to the north and north west of the aircraft s last known position 168 172 176 The search area had been drawn up by oceanographers from France Russia Great Britain and the United States combining data on the location of floating bodies and wreckage and currents in the mid Atlantic in the days immediately after the crash 177 178 179 A smaller area to the south west was also searched based on a re analysis of sonar recordings made by Emeraude the previous year 180 181 182 The third phase of the search ended on 24 May 2010 without any success though the BEA says that the search nearly covered the whole area drawn up by investigators 168 2011 search and recovery edit In July 2010 the U S based search consultancy Metron Inc had been engaged to draw up a probability map of where to focus the search based on prior probabilities from flight data and local condition reports combined with the results from the previous searches The Metron team used what it described as classic Bayesian search methods an approach that had previously been successful in the search for the submarine USS Scorpion and SS Central America Phase 4 of the search operation started close to the aircraft s last known position which was identified by the Metron study as being the most likely resting place of flight 447 183 184 nbsp Cable ship Ile de Sein was assigned to assist in the recovery of materials from the ocean floor Within a week of resuming of the search operation on 3 April 2011 a team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution operating full ocean depth autonomous underwater vehicles AUVs owned by the Waitt Institute 185 discovered by means of sidescan sonar a large portion of the debris field from flight AF447 183 Further debris and bodies still trapped in the partly intact remains of the aircraft s fuselage were at a depth of 3 980 metres 2 180 fathoms 13 060 ft 186 The debris was found lying in a relatively flat and silty area of the ocean floor as opposed to the extremely mountainous topography originally believed to be AF447 s final resting place 187 Other items found were engines wing parts and the landing gear 188 The debris field was described as quite compact measuring 200 by 600 metres 660 by 1 970 ft and a short distance north of where pieces of wreckage had been recovered previously suggesting the aircraft hit the water largely intact 189 The French Ecology and Transportation Minister Nathalie Kosciusko Morizet stated the bodies and wreckage would be brought to the surface and taken to France for examination and identification 190 The French government chartered the Ile de Sein to recover the flight recorders from the wreckage 191 192 An American Remora 6000 remotely operated vehicle ROV i and operations crew from Phoenix International experienced in the recovery of aircraft for the United States Navy were on board the Ile de Sein 193 194 Ile de Sein arrived at the crash site on 26 April and during its first dive the Remora 6000 found the flight data recorder chassis although without the crash survivable memory unit 195 196 On 1 May the memory unit was found and lifted on board the Ile de Sein by the ROV 197 The aircraft s cockpit voice recorder was found on 2 May 2011 and was raised and brought on board the Ile de Sein the following day 198 On 7 May the flight recorders under judicial seal were taken aboard the French Navy patrol boat La Capricieuse for transfer to the port of Cayenne From there they were transported by air to the BEA s office in Le Bourget near Paris for data download and analysis One engine and the avionics bay containing onboard computers had also been raised 199 By 15 May all the data from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder had been downloaded 2 20 200 The data were analysed over the following weeks and the findings published in the third interim report at the end of July 201 The entire download was filmed and recorded 201 Between 5 May and 3 June 2011 104 bodies were recovered from the wreckage bringing the total number of bodies found to 154 Fifty bodies had been previously recovered from the sea 153 202 203 204 The search ended with the remaining 74 bodies still not recovered 205 Investigation and safety improvements editThe French authorities opened two investigations A criminal investigation for manslaughter began on 5 June 2009 under the supervision of Investigating Magistrate Sylvie Zimmerman from the Paris High Court French Tribunal de Grande Instance 206 The judge gave the investigation to the National Gendarmerie French Gendarmerie nationale which would conduct it through its aerial transportation division Air transport police French Gendarmerie des transports aeriens or GTA and its forensic research institute the National Gendarmerie Institute for Criminal Research French Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale FR 207 As part of the criminal investigation the DGSE the external French intelligence agency examined the names of passengers on board for any possible links to terrorist groups 208 In March 2011 a French judge filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and Airbus over the crash 209 The cases against Air France and Airbus were dropped in 2019 and 2011 respectively 210 211 212 A technical investigation was started the goal of which was to enhance the safety of future flights In accordance with the provisions of ICAO Annex 13 the BEA participated in the investigation as representative for the state country of manufacture of the Airbus 213 The Brazilian Air Force s Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center CENIPA the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation BFU the UK s Air Accidents Investigation Branch AAIB and the U S National Transportation Safety Board NTSB also became involved in accordance with these provisions the NTSB became involved as the representative of the state of manufacture of the General Electric turbine engines installed on the plane and the other representatives could supply important information The People s Republic of China Croatia Hungary Republic of Ireland Italy Lebanon Morocco Norway South Korea Russia South Africa and Switzerland appointed observers since citizens of those countries were on board 214 On 5 June 2009 the BEA cautioned against premature speculation as to the cause of the crash At that time the investigation had established only two facts the weather near the aircraft s planned route included significant convective cells typical of the equatorial regions and the speeds measured by the three pitot tubes differed from each other during the last few minutes of the flight 215 On 2 July 2009 the BEA released an intermediate report which described all known facts and a summary of the visual examination of the rudder and the other parts of the aircraft that had been recovered at that time 216 According to the BEA this examination showed The airliner was likely to have struck the surface of the sea in a normal flight attitude with a high rate of descent j 217 218 No signs of any fires or explosions were found The airliner did not break up in flight 219 The report also stresses that the BEA had not had access to the post mortem reports at the time of its writing 220 221 On 16 May 2011 Le Figaro reported that the BEA investigators had ruled out an aircraft malfunction as the cause of the crash according to preliminary information extracted from the FDR 222 The following day the BEA issued a press release explicitly describing the Le Figaro report as a sensationalist publication of non validated information The BEA stated that no conclusions had been made investigations were continuing and no interim report was expected before the summer 223 On 18 May the head of the investigation further stated no major malfunction of the aircraft had been found so far in the data from the flight data recorder but that minor malfunctions had not been ruled out 224 Airspeed inconsistency edit In the minutes before its disappearance the aircraft s onboard systems sent a number of messages via the ACARS indicating disagreement in the indicated airspeed readings A spokesperson for the BEA claimed the airspeed of the aircraft was unclear to the pilots 155 and on 4 June 2009 Airbus issued an Accident Information Telex to operators of all its aircraft reminding pilots of the recommended abnormal and emergency procedures to be taken in the case of unreliable airspeed indication 225 French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said Obviously the pilots of Flight 447 did not have the correct speed showing which can lead to two bad consequences for the life of the aircraft under speed which can lead to a stall and over speed which can lead to the aircraft breaking up because it is approaching the speed of sound and the structure of the plane is not made for enduring such speeds 226 Pitot tubes edit Between May 2008 and March 2009 nine incidents involving the temporary loss of airspeed indication appeared in the air safety reports ASRs for Air France s A330 A340 fleet All occurred in cruise between flight levels FL310 and FL380 Further after the Flight 447 accident Air France identified six additional incidents that had not been reported on ASRs These were intended for maintenance aircraft technical logs drawn up by the pilots to describe these incidents only partially to indicate the characteristic symptoms of the incidents associated with unreliable airspeed readings 2 122 227 The problems primarily occurred in 2007 on the A320 but awaiting a recommendation from Airbus Air France delayed installing new pitot tubes on A330 A340 and increased inspection frequencies in these aircraft 228 229 When it was introduced in 1994 the Airbus A330 was equipped with pitot tubes part number 0851GR manufactured by Goodrich Sensors and Integrated Systems A 2001 Airworthiness Directive AD required these to be replaced with either a later Goodrich design part number 0851HL or with pitot tubes made by Thales part number C16195AA 230 Air France chose to equip its fleet with the Thales pitot tubes In September 2007 Airbus recommended that Thales C16195AA pitot tubes should be replaced by Thales model C16195BA to address the problem of water ingress that had been observed 231 Since it was not an AD the guidelines allowed the operator to apply the recommendations at its discretion Air France implemented the change on its A320 fleet on which the incidents of water ingress were observed and decided to do so in its A330 340 fleet only when failures started to occur in May 2008 232 233 After discussing these issues with the manufacturer Air France sought a means of reducing these incidents and Airbus indicated that the new pitot probe designed for the A320 was not designed to prevent cruise level ice over In 2009 tests suggested that the new probe could improve its reliability prompting Air France to accelerate the replacement program 233 which started on 29 May F GZCP was scheduled to have its pitot tubes replaced as soon as it returned to Paris 234 By 17 June 2009 Air France had replaced all pitot probes on its A330 type aircraft 235 In July 2009 Airbus issued new advice to A330 and A340 operators to exchange Thales pitot tubes for tubes from Goodrich 236 237 238 On 12 August 2009 Airbus issued three mandatory service bulletins requiring that all A330 and A340 aircraft be fitted with two Goodrich 0851HL pitot tubes and one Thales model C16195BA pitot or alternatively three of the Goodrich pitot tubes Thales model C16195AA pitot tubes were no longer to be used 239 2 216 This requirement was incorporated into ADs issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency on 31 August 239 and by the Federal Aviation Administration FAA on 3 September 240 The replacement was to be completed by 7 January 2010 According to the FAA in its Federal Register publication use of the Thales model has resulted in reports of airspeed indication discrepancies while flying at high altitudes in inclement weather conditions that could result in reduced control of the airplane The FAA further stated that the Thales model probe has not yet demonstrated the same level of robustness to withstand high altitude ice crystals as Goodrich pitot probes P N 0851HL On 20 December 2010 Airbus issued a warning to roughly 100 operators of A330 A340 200 and A340 300 aircraft regarding pitot tubes advising pilots not to re engage the autopilot following failure of the airspeed indicators 241 242 243 Safety recommendations issued by BEA for pitot probes design recommended they must be fitted with a heating system designed to prevent any malfunctioning due to icing Appropriate means must be provided visual warning directly visible to the crew to inform the crew of any nonfunctioning of the heating system 2 137 Findings from the flight data recorder edit On 27 May 2011 the BEA released an update on its investigation describing the history of the flight as recorded by the FDR This confirmed what had previously been concluded from post mortemexamination of the bodies and debris recovered from the ocean surface the aircraft had not broken up at altitude but had fallen into the ocean intact 219 221 The FDRs also revealed that the aircraft s descent into the sea was not due to mechanical failure or the aircraft being overwhelmed by the weather but because the flight crew had raised the aircraft s nose reducing its speed until it entered an aerodynamic stall 88 244 While the inconsistent airspeed data caused the disengagement of the autopilot the reason the pilots lost control of the aircraft had remained a mystery in particular because pilots would normally try to lower the nose in the event of a stall 245 246 247 Multiple sensors provide the pitch information and no indication was given that any of them were malfunctioning 248 One factor may be that since the A330 does not normally accept control inputs that would cause a stall the pilots were unaware that a stall could happen when the aircraft switched to an alternative mode because of failure of the airspeed indication 244 k In October 2011 a transcript of the CVR was leaked and published in the book Erreurs de Pilotage Pilot Errors by Jean Pierre Otelli 253 The BEA and Air France both condemned the release of this information with Air France calling it sensationalized and unverifiable information that impairs the memory of the crew and passengers who lost their lives 254 The BEA subsequently released its final report on the accident and Appendix 1 contained an official CVR transcript that did not include groups of words deemed to have no bearing on flight 84 Third interim report edit On 29 July 2011 the BEA released a third interim report on safety issues it found in the wake of the crash 4 It was accompanied by two shorter documents summarizing the interim report 255 and addressing safety recommendations 256 The third interim report stated that some new facts had been established In particular The pilots had not applied the unreliable airspeed procedure The pilot in control pulled back on the stick thus increasing the angle of attack and causing the aircraft to climb rapidly The pilots apparently did not notice that the aircraft had reached its maximum permissible altitude The pilots did not read out the available data vertical velocity altitude etc The stall warning sounded continuously for 54 seconds The pilots did not comment on the stall warnings and apparently did not realize that the aircraft was stalled There was some buffeting associated with the stall The stall warning deactivates by design when the angle of attack measurements are considered invalid and this is the case when the airspeed drops below a certain limit In consequence the stall warning came on whenever the pilot pushed forward on the stick and then stopped when he pulled back this happened several times during the stall and this may have confused the pilots Despite the fact that they were aware that altitude was declining rapidly the pilots were unable to determine which instruments to trust all values may have appeared to them to be incoherent 257 The BEA assembled a human factors working group to analyze the crew s actions and reactions during the final stages of the flight 258 A brief bulletin by Air France indicated the misleading stopping and starting of the stall warning alarm contradicting the actual state of the aircraft greatly contributed to the crew s difficulty in analyzing the situation 259 260 nbsp Building 153 the head office of the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety BEA at Le Bourget Airport where the flight recorders were analysed Final report edit On 5 July 2012 the BEA released its final report on the accident This confirmed the findings of the preliminary reports and provided additional details and recommendations to improve safety According to the final report 2 the accident resulted from this succession of major events Temporary inconsistency between the measured speeds likely as a result of the obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals caused autopilot disconnection and flight control mode reconfiguration to alternate law ALT The crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path The crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information The crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path The crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall The crew failed to recognize the aircraft had stalled and consequently did not make inputs that would have made recovering from the stall possible 2 200 These events resulted from these major factors in combination 2 Feedback mechanisms between all those involved the report identifies manufacturers operators flight crews and regulatory agencies which made it impossible to identify repeated non application of the loss of airspeed information procedure and to ensure that crews were trained in icing of the pitot probes and its consequences The crew s lack of practical training in manually handling the aircraft both at high altitude and in the event of anomalies of speed indication The weakening of the two co pilots task sharing both by incomprehension of the situation at the time of autopilot disconnection and by poor management of the startle effect leaving them in an emotionally charged state The cockpit s lack of a clear display of the inconsistencies in airspeed readings identified by the flight computers The crew s lack of response to the stall warning whether due to a failure to identify the aural warning to the transience of the stall warnings that could have been considered spurious to the absence of any visual information that could confirm that the aircraft was approaching stall after losing the characteristic speeds to confusing stall related buffet for overspeed related buffet to the indications by the flight director that might have confirmed the crew s mistaken view of their actions or to difficulty in identifying and understanding the implications of the switch to alternate law which does not protect the angle of attack Independent analyses editBefore and after the publication of the final report by the BEA in July 2012 many independent analyses and expert opinions were published in the media about the cause of the accident Significance of the accident edit In May 2011 Wil S Hylton of The New York Times commented that the crash was easy to bend into myth because no other passenger jet in modern history had disappeared so completely without a Mayday call or a witness or even a trace on radar Hylton explained that the A330 was considered to be among the safest of the passenger aircraft Hylton added that when Flight 447 seemed to disappear from the sky it was tempting to deliver a tidy narrative about the hubris of building a self flying aircraft Icarus falling from the sky Or maybe Flight 447 was the Titanic an uncrashable ship at the bottom of the sea 202 Dr Guy Gratton an aviation expert from the Flight Safety Laboratory at Brunel University said This is an air accident the likes of which we haven t seen before Half the accident investigators in the Western world and in Russia too are waiting for these results This has been the biggest investigation since Lockerbie Put bluntly big passenger planes do not just fall out of the sky 261 Angle of attack indication edit In a July 2011 article in Aviation Week Chesley Sully Sullenberger was quoted as saying the crash was a seminal accident and suggested that pilots would be able to better handle upsets of this type if they had an indication of the wing s angle of attack AoA 262 By contrast aviation author Captain Bill Palmer has expressed doubts that an AoA indicator would have saved AF447 writing as the PF pilot flying seemed to be ignoring the more fundamental indicators of pitch and attitude along with numerous stall warnings one could question what difference a rarely used AoA gauge would have made 263 Following its investigation the BEA recommended that the European Aviation Safety Agency and the FAA should consider making an AoA indicator on the instrument panel mandatory 264 needs update In 2014 the FAA streamlined requirements for AoA indicators for general aviation 265 266 without affecting requirements for commercial aviation Human factors and computer interaction edit On 6 December 2011 Popular Mechanics published an English translation of the analysis of the transcript of the CVR controversially leaked in the book Erreurs de Pilotage 253 It highlighted the role of the co pilot in stalling the aircraft while the flight computer was under alternate law at high altitude This simple but persistent human error was given as the most direct cause of this accident 244 In the commentary accompanying the article they also noted that the failure to follow principles of crew resource management was a contributory factor The final BEA report points to the human computer interface HCI of the Airbus as a possible factor contributing to the crash It provides an explanation for most of the pitch up inputs by the pilot flying left unexplained in the Popular Mechanics piece namely that the flight director display was misleading 267 The pitch up input at the beginning of the fatal sequence of events appears to be the consequence of an altimeter error The investigators also pointed to the lack of a clear display of the airspeed inconsistencies though the computers had identified them Some systems generated failure messages only about the consequences but never mentioned the origin of the problem The investigators recommended a blocked pitot tube should be clearly indicated as such to the crew on the flight displays The Daily Telegraph pointed out the absence of AoA information which is important in identifying and preventing a stall 268 The paper stated though angle of attack readings are sent to onboard computers there are no displays in modern jets to convey this critical information to the crews Der Spiegel indicated the difficulty the pilots faced in diagnosing the problem One alarm after another lit up the cockpit monitors One after another the autopilot the automatic engine control system and the flight computers shut themselves off 269 Against this backdrop of confusing information difficulty with aural cognition due to heavy buffeting from the storm as well as the stall and zero external visibility the pilots had less than three minutes to identify the problem and take corrective action The Der Spiegel report asserts that such a crash could happen again In an article in Vanity Fair William Langewiesche noted that once the AoA was so extreme the system rejected the data as invalid and temporarily stopped the stall warnings but this led to a perverse reversal that lasted nearly to the impact each time Bonin happened to lower the nose rendering the angle of attack marginally less severe the stall warning sounded again a negative reinforcement that may have locked him into his pattern of pitching up which increased the angle of attack and thus aggravated the stall 44 Side stick control issue edit nbsp Right hand side stick control on an Airbus A380 flight deck similar to the one installed on A330s In April 2012 in The Daily Telegraph British journalist Nick Ross published a comparison of Airbus and Boeing flight controls unlike the control yoke used on Boeing flight decks the Airbus side stick controls give little visual feedback and no sensory or tactile feedback to the second pilot The cockpit synthetic voice however does give an aural message Dual Input whenever opposite inputs are initiated by the pilots 255 Ross reasoned that this might in part explain why the PF s pilot flying fatal nose up inputs were not countermanded by his two colleagues 268 270 In a July 2012 CBS report Sullenberger suggested the design of the Airbus cockpit might have been a factor in the accident The flight controls are not mechanically linked between the two pilot seats and Robert the left seat pilot who believed he had taken over control of the aircraft was not aware that Bonin continued to hold the stick back which overrode Robert s own control 271 272 l The BEA final report acknowledged the difficulty for one pilot to observe the side stick input of the other 273 but did not identify it as a cause of the accident 274 and made no recommendation related to the side stick input design 275 Fatigue edit Getting enough sleep is a constant concern for pilots of long haul flights 276 Although the BEA could find no objective indications that the pilots of Flight 447 were suffering from fatigue 2 100 277 some exchanges recorded on the CVR including a remark made by Captain Dubois that he had only slept an hour m could indicate the crew were not well rested before the flight 278 The co pilots had spent three nights in Rio de Janeiro but the BEA was unable to retrieve data regarding their rest and could not determine their activities during the stopover 2 24 279 280 Aftermath edit nbsp Memorial to the victims of Flight 447 in Rio an identical monument was erected in Paris at Pere Lachaise Cemetery Shortly after the crash Air France changed the number of the regular Rio de Janeiro Paris flight from AF447 to AF445 281 however as of December 2023 the number for the route has been changed to AF485 and instead of an Airbus A330 the airline uses a Boeing 777 300ER 282 As of January 2024 Air France is beginning to phase out their entire Airbus A330 fleet to be replaced with newer and more energy efficient Airbus A350 900 and they are all to be completely retired by 2030 283 Six months after the crash of Air France Flight 447 on 30 November 2009 Air France Flight 445 operated by another Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCK made a mayday call because of severe turbulence around the same area and at a similar time to when Flight 447 was lost Because the pilots could not obtain immediate permission from air traffic controllers ATCs to descend to a less turbulent altitude the mayday was to alert other aircraft in the vicinity that the flight had deviated from its allocated flight level This is standard contingency procedure when changing altitude without direct ATC authorization After 30 minutes of moderate to severe turbulence the flight continued normally The flight landed safely in Paris 6 hours and 40 minutes after the mayday call 284 285 Inaccurate airspeed indicators edit Several cases have occurred in which inaccurate airspeed information led to flight incidents on the A330 and A340 Two of those incidents involved pitot probes n In the first incident an Air France A340 300 F GLZL en route from Tokyo to Paris experienced an event at 31 000 feet 9 400 m in which the airspeed was incorrectly reported and the autopilot automatically disengaged Bad weather and obstructed drainage holes in all three pitot probes were subsequently found to be the cause 286 In the second incident an Air France A340 300 F GLZN en route from Paris to New York encountered turbulence followed by the autoflight systems going offline warnings over the accuracy of the reported airspeed and 2 minutes of stall alerts 286 Another incident on TAM Flight 8091 from Miami to Rio de Janeiro on 21 May 2009 involving an A330 200 showed a sudden drop of outside air temperature then loss of air data the ADIRS autopilot and autothrust 287 The aircraft descended 1 000 metres 3 300 ft before being manually recovered using backup instruments The NTSB also examined a similar 23 June 2009 incident on a Northwest Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo 287 concluding in both cases that the aircraft operating manual was sufficient to prevent a dangerous situation from occurring 288 Following the crash of Air France 447 other Airbus A330 operators studied their internal flight records to seek patterns Delta Air Lines analyzed the data of Northwest Airlines flights that occurred before the two companies merged and found a dozen incidents in which at least one of an A330 s pitot tubes had briefly stopped working when the aircraft was flying through the ITCZ the same location where Air France 447 crashed 289 290 Legal cases edit Air France and Airbus have been investigated for manslaughter since 2011 but in 2019 prosecutors recommended dropping the case against Airbus and charging Air France with manslaughter and negligence concluding the airline was aware of technical problems with a key airspeed monitoring instrument on its planes but failed to train pilots to resolve them 210 The case against Airbus was dropped on 22 July the same year 211 The case against Air France was dropped in September 2019 when magistrates said there were not enough grounds to prosecute 212 However in 2021 a public prosecutor in Paris requested to have Airbus and Air France tried in a court of law 291 In April it was announced that both companies would be prosecuted over the crash Lawyers for Airbus stated they would lodge an immediate appeal against the decision 292 The trial opened on 10 October 2022 with Airbus and Air France both being charged with involuntary manslaughter 293 Both companies pleaded not guilty to the charges 293 294 295 On 7 December prosecutors announced that they would not seek conviction of either company for manslaughter as they were unable to prove them guilty and recommended acquitting both companies Families and friends of the victims were outraged by the decision 296 297 298 On 17 April 2023 Airbus and Air France were both acquitted of manslaughter 299 300 301 However 10 days later a French prosecutor lodged an appeal against the verdict 302 In popular culture editA one hour documentary entitled Lost The Mystery of Flight 447 detailing an early independent hypothesis about the crash was produced by Darlow Smithson in 2010 for Nova and the BBC Using the then sparse publicly available evidence and information and without data from the black boxes a critical chain of events was postulated employing the expertise of an expert pilot an expert accident investigator an aviation meteorologist and an aircraft structural engineer 303 304 305 306 On 16 September 2012 Channel 4 in the UK presented Fatal Flight 447 Chaos in the Cockpit which showed data from the black boxes including an in depth re enactment It was produced by Minnow Films 307 Similar presentation was made by 60 Minutes Australia in 2014 308 The aviation disaster documentary television series Mayday also known as Air Crash Investigation and Air Emergency produced a 45 minute episode titled Air France 447 Vanished which aired on 15 April 2013 in Great Britain and 17 May 2013 in the U S 309 An article about the crash by American author and pilot William Langewiesche entitled Should Airplanes Be Flying Themselves was published by Vanity Fair in October 2014 44 A 99 Invisible podcast episode about the flight entitled Children of the Magenta Automation Paradox pt 1 was released on 23 June 2015 as the first of a two part story about automation 310 In November 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor David Mindell discussed the Air France Flight 447 tragedy in the opening segment of an EconTalk podcast dedicated to the ideas in Mindell s 2015 book Our Robots Ourselves Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy 311 Mindell said the crash illustrated a failed handoff with insufficient warning from the aircraft s autopilot to the human pilots 312 The Rooster Teeth produced podcast Black Box Down covered the flight in an episode titled Stalling 38 000 Feet Over The Atlantic on 30 July 2020 313 On 9 September 2021 the Science Channel Documentary Deadly Engineering covered the crash on Season 3 Episode 1 Catastrophes in the Sky 314 See also edit nbsp France portal nbsp Brazil portal nbsp Aviation portal nbsp 2000s portal Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 a 2014 fatal crash involving an Airbus A320 resulting from a high altitude stall and pilots making opposite inputs with the aircraft s side stick controls Colgan Air Flight 3407 a 2009 fatal crash resulting from improper response to a stall by the pilot Birgenair Flight 301 a 1996 fatal crash resulting from blocked pitot tubes which led to a high altitude stall Aeroperu Flight 603 a 1996 fatal crash caused by a blocked static port Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231 a 1974 fatal crash caused by frozen pitot tubes XL Airways Germany Flight 888T a 2008 fatal crash resulting from a stall that was caused by frozen angle of attack sensors Air Algerie Flight 5017 a 2014 fatal crash caused by ice accumulating in the engines and reducing thrust which caused the plane to slow to the point of stalling Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 another flight that crashed because pilots improperly handled improper airspeed information due to frozen pitot tubes TWA Flight 841 1979 and China Airlines Flight 006 other accidents in which pilot errors led to stalls List of deadliest aircraft accidents and incidents Air France accidents and incidentsNotes edit The 2 in the suffix denotes that it was a 200 series variant of the A330 03 denotes that it was equipped with General Electric CF6 80E1A3 engines AF is the IATA airline designator and AFR is the ICAO airline designator The 2 in the suffix denotes that it was a 200 series variant of the A330 03 denotes that it was equipped with General Electric CF6 80E1A3 engines At the time of its disappearance F GZCP was using satellite communication its position over the mid Atlantic being too far from land based receivers for VHF to be effective On the map page 13 the coordinates in BEA s first interim report 69 with the information on page 13 is referenced as the last known position French Derniere position connue last known position More precisely that after one of the three independent systems had been diagnosed as faulty and excluded from consideration the two remaining systems disagreed 850 from its Navy and 250 Air Force The areas showing detailed bathymetry were mapped using multibeam bathymetric sonar The areas showing very generalized bathymetry were mapped using high density satellite altimetry The Remora 6000 remotely operated vehicle was designed and constructed by Phoenix International Holdings Inc of Largo Maryland United States The airliner was considered to be in a nearly level attitude but with a high rate of descent when it collided with the surface of the ocean That impact caused high deceleration and compression forces on the airliner as shown by the deformations that were found in the recovered wreckage Some reports have described this as a deep stall 249 but this was a steady state conventional stall 250 A deep stall is associated with an aircraft with a T tail but this aircraft does not have a T tail 251 The BEA described it as a sustained stall 252 There was a similar side stick control issue in the Air Asia Flight 8501 accident I didn t sleep enough last night One hour it s not enough right now Cette nuit j ai pas assez dormi Une heure c etait pas assez tout a l heure For an explanation of how airspeed is measured see air data reference Works cited editOfficial sources in English BEA France 2 July 2009 Interim report on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF translated by BEA from French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety OCLC 821207217 archived PDF from the original on 3 May 2011 retrieved 13 March 2017 BEA France 30 November 2009 Interim Report n 2 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF translated by BEA from French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety ISBN 978 2 11 098715 0 OCLC 827738411 archived PDF from the original on 3 May 2011 retrieved 12 March 2017 BEA France 29 July 2011 Interim report n 3 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF translated by BEA from French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety OCLC 827738487 archived PDF from the original on 19 September 2011 retrieved 12 March 2017 BEA France 5 July 2012 Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF translated by BEA from French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety archived PDF from the original on 11 July 2012 retrieved 12 March 2017 BEA France 5 July 2012 Appendix 1 CVR Transcript PDF Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris translated by BEA from French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety archived PDF from the original on 21 September 2013 retrieved 11 July 2012 BEA France 5 July 2012 Appendix 2 FDR Chronology PDF Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF translated by BEA from French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety archived PDF from the original on 21 September 2013 retrieved 12 March 2017 Official sources in French the French version is the report of record BEA France 2 July 2009 Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 a l Airbus A330 203 immatricule F GZCP exploite par Air France vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris f cp090601e Rapport d etape Interim report on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF in French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety ISBN 978 2 11 098702 0 OCLC 816349880 archived PDF from the original on 31 May 2011 retrieved 13 March 2017 BEA France 30 November 2009 Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 a l avion Airbus A330 203 immatricule F GZCP exploite par Air France Vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris rapport d etape n 2 Interim Report n 2 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF in French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety ISBN 978 2 11 098713 6 OCLC 762531678 archived PDF from the original on 31 May 2011 retrieved 13 March 2017 BEA France 29 July 2011 Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 a l avion Airbus A330 203 immatricule F GZCP exploite par Air France Vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris rapport d etape n 3 Interim Report n 3 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF in French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety archived PDF from the original on 14 August 2011 retrieved 13 March 2017 BEA France 5 July 2012 Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 a l Airbus A330 203 immatricule F GZCP exploite par Air France vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris Rapport final Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris PDF in French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety archived PDF from the original on 11 July 2012 retrieved 12 March 2017 BEA France 5 July 2012 Annexe 1 Transcription CVR Appendix 1 CVR Transcript PDF Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 a l Airbus A330 203 immatricule F GZCP exploite par Air France vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 a l Airbus A330 203 immatricule F GZCP exploite par Air France vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris in French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety archived PDF from the original on 30 May 2019 retrieved 24 July 2019 BEA France 5 July 2012 Annexe 2 Chronologie FDR Appendix 2 FDR Chronology PDF Accident survenu le 1er juin 2009 a l Airbus A330 203 immatricule F GZCP exploite par Air France vol AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris Final report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330 203 registered F GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris in French Le Bourget BEA Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety archived PDF from the original on 30 May 2019 retrieved 24 July 2019 Other sources Otelli Jean Pierre 2011 Erreurs de pilotage Tome 5 Pilot Error Volume 5 in French Levallois Perret Altipresse ISBN 979 10 90465 03 9 OCLC 780308849 Rapoport Roger 2011 The Rio Paris Crash Air France 447 Lexographic Press ISBN 978 0 9847142 0 9 Malmquist Capt Shem amp Rapport Roger 2017 Angle of Attack Air France 447 and the future of Aviation Safety Lexographic Press ISBN 978 0 9847142 6 1 Palmer Bill 2013 Understanding Air France 447 paperback William Palmer ISBN 978 0989785723 References edit a b BEA first 2009 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v BEA final 2012 Air France crash Trial ordered for Airbus and airline over 2009 disaster BBC News BBC 12 May 2021 Archived from the original on 12 May 2021 Retrieved 12 May 2021 a b c BEA third 2011 Clark Nicola 29 July 2011 Report on Air France Crash Points to Pilot Training Issues The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on 18 March 2017 Retrieved 24 February 2017 a b Ranter Harro Accident description F GZCP Aviation Safety Network Flight Safety Foundation Archived from the original on 16 October 2011 Retrieved 23 October 2011 F GZCP Air France Airbus A330 203 cn 660 Planespotters 2014 Archived from the original on 5 May 2011 Retrieved 27 June 2014 F GZCP Aviation civile Civil aviation registration data in French The Government of France archived from the original on 20 July 2011 retrieved 27 June 2009 EASA Type Certificate Data Sheet for AIRBUS A330 PDF European Aviation Safety Agency 22 November 2013 Archived PDF from the original on 3 March 2016 Retrieved 29 May 2014 p 18 sec 1 2 1 JACDEC Special accident report Air France Flight 447 Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre Archived from the original on 5 June 2009 Retrieved 23 October 2011 Key figures in global battle against illegal arms trade lost in Air France crash The Herald Glasgow 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 1 May 2011 Tirolerin bei Flugzeugabsturz umgekommen Tyrolean woman died in plane crash ORF at in German 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 4 December 2022 Retrieved 4 December 2022 73 Francais 58 Bresiliens 26 Allemands 73 French 58 Brazilians 26 Germans Liberation in French 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 June 2009 Retrieved 4 December 2022 法航客机已证实坠毁 中国遇难者名单公布 Air France passenger plane has been confirmed to have crashed Sina Corporation in Chinese 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Prije 14 godina nestao je avion Air Francea Među 228 poginulih bio je i hrvatski pomorac koji je krenuo kuci 14 years ago the Air France plane disappeared Among the 228 dead was a Croatian sailor who was on his way home Vecernji list in Croatian 11 June 2023 Air France kaduma ldinud lennukis viibis ka ks Eesti kodanik Air France one Estonian citizen was also on board the missing plane Postimees in Estonian 1 June 2009 Gabon Un Gabonais dont on ignore encore l identite parmi les victimes du crash de l appareil d Air France Gabon A Gabonese whose identity is still unknown among the victims of the Air France plane crash All Africa in French 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 4 December 2022 Retrieved 4 December 2022 Opfer Ines G Fliegen war fur sie Routine Victim Ines G Flying was routine for her Suddeutsche Zeitung in German 17 May 2010 Lik Islendings sem forst i Air France slysinu fundid Body of the Icelander that died in the Air France crash found Visir in Icelandic 18 November 2011 Archived from the original on 3 March 2023 Retrieved 3 March 2023 Byrne 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disappeared testimonies hypotheses and denial rts ch in French Radio Television Suisse 9 June 2009 Archived from the original on 10 November 2012 Retrieved 9 May 2020 The Last Recital in Rio de Janeiro Korhan Bircan 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 19 July 2010 Retrieved 6 June 2009 Chrisafis Angelique Tran Mark 1 June 2009 Britons among Air France crash victims The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Archived from the original on 6 September 2013 Retrieved 1 December 2022 Moyer Amanda 3 June 2009 American couple on Flight 447 loved life relatives say CNN Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 9 May 2020 a b Press release N 5 Press release Air France 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 4 January 2011 Retrieved 8 January 2011 Naughton Philippe Bremner Charles 1 June 2009 Air France jet with 215 people on board drops off radar The Times London Archived from the original on 17 June 2020 Retrieved 1 June 2009 Air France statement on crashed airliner in the Atlantic BNO News 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 7 June 2009 Retrieved 1 June 2009 a b French plane lost in ocean storm BBC News 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 3 June 2009 Retrieved 1 June 2009 At 0530 GMT Brazil s air force launched a search and rescue mission sending out a coast guard patrol aircraft and a specialised air force rescue aircraft France is despatching three search planes based in Dakar Captain of Air France Flight 447 was son of pilot Deseret News Associated Press 3 June 2009 Archived from the original on 26 December 2019 Retrieved 1 May 2020 a b c d e Faccini Barbara January 2013 Four minutes 23 seconds Flight AF447 PDF Volare Aviation Monthly Archived PDF from the original on 30 December 2019 Retrieved 1 May 2020 a b c d Langewiesche William McCabe Sean October 2014 The Human Factor Vanity Fair Photo Illustration Archived from the original on 17 September 2014 Retrieved 18 September 2014 a b c d e f g h Wise Jeff 6 December 2011 What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 Popular Mechanics Archived from the original on 3 December 2014 Retrieved 1 May 2020 What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 PDF hptinstitute com Human Performance Training Institute Inc Archived PDF from the original on 31 October 2019 Retrieved 12 November 2019 Today may be all we have harrisonjones 22 October 2012 Retrieved 12 November 2019 Inside cockpit Af447 archived from the original on 6 November 2019 retrieved 12 November 2019 Flight 447 pilot had 20 years of flying for Air France Calvin Palmer s Weblog 3 June 2009 Archived from the original on 1 November 2019 Retrieved 12 November 2019 List of passengers aboard lost Air France flight Huffington Post USA Associated Press 4 June 2009 Air France Update Flight Air France 447 Rio de Janeiro Paris Charles de Gaulle Air France 5 October 2009 Archived from the original on 22 July 2010 Retrieved 8 January 2011 Ships head for area where airplane debris spotted CNN 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 2 June 2009 Chrisafis Angelique Phillips Tom 1 June 2009 Terminal said delayed but the faces betrayed the truth The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Archived from the original on 10 May 2017 Retrieved 23 March 2012 McNeil Donald G Jr Negroni Christine 1 June 2009 Search Is on for Wreckage of Missing Air France Jet The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on 12 November 2019 Retrieved 12 November 2019 Frequently Asked Questions Air France 9 July 2009 Archived from the original on 6 October 2009 Our first priority was to organize the arrival of 60 to 70 relatives at Roissy There were not more than this because many passengers were connecting passengers Air France pays 24 500 to crash victims families CNN 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 21 June 2009 Retrieved 20 June 2009 Voo Air France 447 ultimas informacoes Flight Air France 447 latest information Veja in Portuguese Brazil Editora Abril 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 June 2009 Retrieved 8 January 2011 Cotidiano Familia Orleans e Braganca confirma que principe brasileiro estava no voo AF 447 Daily Orleans and Braganza family confirms that Brazilian prince was on flight AF 447 Folha on line Brazil in Portuguese Agencia Brasil 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2011 Retrieved 8 January 2011 Belgisch Braziliaanse prins onder de slachtoffers Belgian Brazilian prince among the victims in Dutch Standaard be 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 June 2009 Retrieved 2 June 2009 Confira os nomes de 84 passageiros que estavam no voo AF 447 Confirmation of names of 84 passengers at AF 447 Correio Braziliense in Portuguese 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 July 2011 Retrieved 8 January 2011 Trento Redazione 31 May 2019 10 anni fa la tragedia dell Air France che costo la vita a Giovanni Battista Lenzi 10 years ago the Air France tragedy that cost the life of Giovanni Battista Lenzi The voice of Trentino in Italian Archived from the original on 8 June 2019 Retrieved 25 November 2023 Airbus apolice de US 94 mi e seguro incalculavel Airbus 94m policy and incalculable insurance in Portuguese Sao Paulo Monitor Mercantil 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 2 June 2009 Lista nao oficial de vitimas do voo 447 da Air France inclui executivos medicos e ate um membro da familia Orleans e Braganca Unofficial list of Air France flight 447 victims includes executives doctors and even a member of the Orleans and Braganza family in Portuguese Globo 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 14 June 2009 Retrieved 2 June 2009 Professor da UFRJ esta entre os passageiros do voo AF 447 UFRJ professor is among the passengers on flight AF 447 g1 globo com in Portuguese 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 27 September 2020 Retrieved 25 November 2023 Good Morning Turkey press scan on 2 June Hurriyet Daily News 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 29 May 2010 Retrieved 6 June 2009 Outro professor da UFRJ tambem esta entre os passageiros do voo AF 447 Another UFRJ professor is also among the passengers on flight AF 447 g1 globo com in Portuguese 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 27 September 2020 Retrieved 25 November 2023 Key figures in global battle against illegal arms trade lost in Air France crash Sunday Herald 11 June 2009 Archived from the original on 11 June 2009 Retrieved 11 June 2009 Safety Investigation Following the Accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A300 203 Flight AF 447 Summary PDF Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety 5 July 2012 Archived from the original PDF on 23 January 2013 Retrieved 25 February 2013 a b BEA first 2009 p 13 BEA final 2012 p 49 The radar data show that AF 447 passed over the SALPU point at 1 h 49 min the last recorded radar point corresponding to the limit of radar coverage this passing time would correspond to an estimated time at TASIL of 2 h 20 BEA first 2009 1 17 2 3 Air France procedures BEA first 2009 1 17 2 2 BEA final 2012 2 1 1 3 1 Choice of time period BEA third 2011 p 73 Palmer 2013 pp 4 39 Palmer 2013 pp 4 5 a b Palmer 2013 p 86 BEA final 2012 2 1 2 3 The excessive amplitude of these nose up inputs made them unsuitable and incompatible with the recommended aircraft handling practices for high altitude flight BEA final appx2 2012 2 h 10 min 08 CAS changes from 274 kn 507 km h to 156 kn 289 km h The CAS ISIS changes from 275 kn 509 km h to 139 kn 257 km h then goes back up to 223 kn 413 km h The Mach changes from 0 80 to 0 26 2 h 10 min 09 CAS is 52 kn 96 km h The CAS ISIS stabilises at 270 kn 500 km h for four seconds 2 h 10 min 34 CAS increases from 105 kn 194 km h to 223 kn 413 km h in two seconds The CAS ISIS is 115 kn 213 km h 2 h 11 min 07 The CAS ISIS changes from 129 kn 239 km h to 183 kn 339 km h The CAS is at 184 kn 341 km h FDR graph parameters in French 2 h 10 min 04 to 2 h 10 min 26 2 h 10 min 26 to 2 h 10 min 50 2 h 10 min 50 to 2 h 11 min 47 Palmer 2013 p 7 02 11 07 The last of the pitot icing had cleared and all three airspeed indications were then displaying correctly Palmer 2013 p 57 The pitot icing lasted for about one minute and five seconds BEA final 2012 p 198 The speed displayed on the left PFD primary flight display was incorrect for 29 seconds that of the speed on the ISIS for 54 seconds and the speed displayed on the right PFD for 61 seconds at most Palmer 2013 pp 78 80 a b BEA final appx2 2012 Palmer 2013 p 57 This created a situation where the air was pushing into in addition to flowing over the static ports This dynamic accounts for the repeated falling of the airspeed to invalid values a b c Archived at Ghostarchive Inside cockpit Af447 YouTube Archived from the original on 6 November 2019 a b Ostrom Lee T Wilhelmsen Cheryl A 2019 Risk Assessment Tools Techniques and Their Applications John Wiley amp Sons p 328 ISBN 978 1 119 48346 5 a b Flight AF 447 on 1st June 2009 A330 203 registered F GZCP 27 May 2011 briefing BEA Archived from the original on 8 December 2015 Recording Indicates Pilot Wasn t in Cockpit During Critical Phase 23 May 2011 Archived from the original on 25 May 2011 Retrieved 23 May 2011 a b BEA first 2009 pp 48 57 Concerns over recovering AF447 recorders Aviation Week Aviation Week 3 June 2009 Archived from the original on 11 August 2011 Retrieved 7 June 2009 Data Link Messages Hold Clues to Air France Crash Aviation Week 7 June 2009 Archived from the original on 16 November 2011 Retrieved 8 June 2009 a b France2 newscast France2 Online France Televisions 4 June 2009 Archived from the original on 20 June 2009 Retrieved 7 June 2009 BEA first 2009 p 49 France 2 in French Archived from the original video on 6 July 2009 Airbus 330 Systems Maintenance System Flight crew operating manual Archived from the original on 14 January 2007 Retrieved 7 June 2009 a b Joint aircraft system component code table and definitions PDF Federal Aviation Administration US Archived PDF from the original on 10 May 2009 Retrieved 6 June 2009 Air France Captain Dubois Let Down by 1 Pound Part Pilots Say Bloomberg L P 11 June 2009 Archived from the original on 25 October 2012 Retrieved 11 June 2009 Airbus 330 Systems Flight Controls Flight crew operating manual Archived from the original on 12 June 2009 Retrieved 7 June 2009 a b Crash Air France A332 over Atlantic on 1 June 2009 aircraft impacted ocean Archived from the original on 19 July 2015 Retrieved 6 June 2009 Airbus ISIS Flight crew operating manual Archived from the original on 20 June 2009 Retrieved 8 June 2009 Airbus 330 Systems Communications Flight crew operating manual Archived from the original on 14 January 2007 Retrieved 7 June 2009 Crash Air France A332 over Atlantic on 1 June 2009 aircraft lost Aviation Herald 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 16 March 2019 Retrieved 3 May 2019 Airbus Flight Control Laws Airbus Archived from the original on 16 April 2009 Retrieved 3 June 2009 Avionics Product Range Airbus Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 21 August 2011 BEA final 2012 1 7 1 p 46 Vasquez Tim 3 June 2009 Air France Flight 447 A detailed meteorological analysis Archived from the original on 26 February 2017 Air France Flight 447 did weather play a role in the accident Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 2 September 2017 Retrieved 3 June 2009 A Meteosat 9 infrared satellite image BBC News Archived from the original on 6 March 2016 Retrieved 1 January 2010 Plane Vanished in Region Known for Huge Storms Fox News Channel 3 June 2009 Archived from the original on 22 October 2012 Retrieved 7 June 2009 BEA final 2012 1 11 2 p 58 Woods Richard Campbell Matthew 7 June 2009 Air France 447 The computer crash The Times UK Archived from the original on 14 August 2011 BEA final 2012 2 1 1 1 p 167 12 similar flights deepen Air France 447 mystery CNN 9 June 2009 Archived from the original on 21 April 2010 Retrieved 23 April 2010 Two Lufthansa jets to give clues on AirFrance Reuters 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 30 June 2017 BEA first 2009 1 9 2 Coordination between the control centres Un avion de la Guardia Civil contra la inmigracion tambien busca el avion desaparecido An aircraft of the Civil Guard against immigration also searches for the disappeared aircraft El Mundo in Spanish 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 June 2009 Retrieved 1 June 2009 El avion Casa 235 de la Guardia Civil utilizado ha sido enviado a primera hora de la tarde a participar en las tareas de busqueda del aparato de Air France desaparecido en las ultimas horas cuando cubria el trayecto Rio de Janeiro y Paris informaron fuentes del Ministerio del Interior Premieres precisions sur l Airbus d Air France disparu First information about the disappeared Air France Airbus L Express in French 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 June 2009 Retrieved 1 June 2009 AF 447 may have come apart before crash experts Associated Press 3 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 3 June 2009 Aucun espoir pour le vol Rio Paris d Air France No hope for the Air France Rio Paris flight L Express in French 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 June 2009 Retrieved 1 June 2009 Chrisafis Angelique 1 June 2009 French plane crashed over Atlantic The Guardian UK Archived from the original on 11 June 2009 Retrieved 1 June 2009 Prospect slim of finding plane survivors KKTV TV Associated Press 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 13 July 2011 Retrieved 16 February 2011 RELAToRIO DAS BUSCAS DO VOO 447 DA AIR FRANCE Report on the Search for Air France Flight 447 in Portuguese No 6 Brazilian Air Force Bulletin 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 11 June 2009 Negroni Christine 2 June 2009 France and Brazil Press Search for Missing Plane The New York Times Archived from the original on 15 February 2013 Retrieved 2 June 2009 No survivors found in wreckage of Air France jet official says CNN 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 2 June 2009 a b Ocean search finds plane debris BBC News 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 3 June 2009 Retrieved 2 June 2009 Jose Alencar decreta tres dias de luto oficial por vitimas do Airbus Jose Alencar decrees three days official mourning for Airbus victims in Portuguese Globo 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 12 June 2009 Retrieved 2 June 2009 a b BEA first 2009 1 16 1 3 Resources deployed by France Sa Evaristo 3 June 2009 Navy ships seek to recover Air France crash debris Agence France Presse Archived from the original on 25 February 2014 Retrieved 10 November 2016 Mini subs sent to look for jet News24 2 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 September 2012 Retrieved 2 June 2009 BEA first 2009 1 16 1 1 Context of the searches Brazilian Air Force Finds More Debris from Flight 447 CRI English 3 June 2009 Archived from the original on 11 June 2009 Retrieved 3 June 2009 Buscas a aeronave do voo AF 447 da Air France Brazilian Navy 4 June 2009 Archived from the original on 27 September 2011 Retrieved 4 June 2009 Nota 17 Informacoes Sobre As Buscas Do Voo 447 Da Air France Note 17 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 Ministerio da Dafesa 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 11 June 2009 Retrieved 17 November 2013 Bibel George Hedges Robert 2018 Plane Crash The Forensics of Aviation Disasters US Johns Hopkins University Press p 143 ISBN 978 1 4214 2448 4 Bibel George Hedges Robert 2018 Plane Crash The Forensics of Aviation Disasters US Johns Hopkins University Press p 144 ISBN 978 1 4214 2448 4 Bodies found from missing plane BBC News 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 8 June 2009 Retrieved 6 June 2009 Brazil Bodies found near Air France crash site NBC News 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 10 March 2014 Retrieved 6 June 2009 Air France tail section recovered BBC News 8 June 2009 Archived from the original on 5 April 2012 Retrieved 1 January 2010 a b Press Release 39 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 Ministerio da Defesa 22 June 2009 Archived from the original on 25 November 2009 Retrieved 17 November 2013 Press Release 37 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 Ministerio da Defesa 20 June 2009 Archived from the original on 24 June 2009 Retrieved 17 November 2013 Press Release 31 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 Ministerio da Defesa 14 June 2009 Archived from the original on 20 June 2009 Retrieved 17 November 2013 a b BEA first 2009 1 12 1 Localisation of the bodies and aircraft parts All the debris known to the BEA was referenced in a database By 26 June this database included 640 items Campbell Matthew Woods Richard 14 June 2009 Crash jet split in two at high altitude The Times UK Archived from the original on 16 April 2014 Retrieved 14 June 2009 a b Nota 33 Informacoes Sobre As Buscas Do Voo 447 Da Air France Note 33 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 in Portuguese Ministerio da Defesa 16 June 2009 Archived from the original on 20 June 2009 Retrieved 17 June 2009 Nota 31 Informacoes Sobre As Buscas Do Voo 447 Da Air France Note 31 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 in Portuguese Ministerio da Defesa 14 June 2009 Archived from the original on 20 June 2009 Retrieved 15 June 2009 Nota 22 Informacoes Sobre As Buscas Do Voo 447 Da Air France Note 22 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 in Portuguese Ministerio da Defesa 9 June 2009 Archived from the original on 12 June 2009 Retrieved 12 June 2009 Nota 27 Informacoes Sobre As Buscas Do Voo 447 Da Air France Note 27 Information on the Search for Air France Flight 447 in Portuguese Ministerio da Defesa 11 June 2009 Archived from the original on 15 June 2009 Retrieved 12 June 2009 BEA second 2009 1 13 p 32 PDF p 33 of 104 The autopsies made it possible to identify fifty persons 45 passengers 4 flight attendants and the captain Bremner Charles Tedmanson Sophie 23 June 2009 Hopes of finding Air France Airbus black boxes dashed The Times London Archived from the original on 12 February 2022 Retrieved 23 April 2010 INFO FIGARO AF 447 le corps du pilote identifie Le Figaro in French France 25 June 2009 Archived from the original on 28 June 2009 Retrieved 25 June 2009 BEA first 2009 Appx A pp 101 107 Chronology of recovery of bodies and airplane parts a b BEA second 2009 1 13 BEA first 2009 1 12 1 p 37 a b France sends nuclear sub to hunt for jet wreckage CBC News 5 June 2009 Archived from the original on 8 June 2009 Retrieved 9 June 2009 More bodies found near Air France crash site Reuters 7 June 2009 Archived from the original on 8 June 2009 Retrieved 8 June 2009 Sub joins search for Air France black boxes NBC News Associated Press 10 June 2009 Archived from the original on 23 April 2023 Retrieved 22 April 2023 a b Lost jet data may not be found BBC News 3 June 2009 Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 3 June 2009 Negroni Christine 3 June 2009 Wreckage of Air France Jet is Found Brazil says The New York Times Archived from the original on 15 February 2013 Retrieved 4 June 2009 Strumpfer Johan 16 October 2006 Deep Ocean Search Planning A Case Study of Problem Solving Archived from the original on 6 June 2009 Retrieved 4 June 2009 Finding the black box of Air France Flight 447 will be challenging French probe team International Business Times 4 June 2009 Archived from the original on 7 June 2009 Retrieved 4 June 2009 Black Box Locating Flight Recorder of Air France Flight 447 in Atlantic Ocean Marine Buzz 8 June 2009 Archived from the original on 13 June 2009 Retrieved 15 June 2009 Brazil ends search for Air France bodies The Sydney Morning Herald 27 June 2009 Archived from the original on 27 June 2009 Retrieved 27 June 2009 Brazil s military said it had ended its search for more bodies and debris The operation which also had the help of French vessels and French Spanish and US aircraft recovered 51 bodies of the 228 people who were on board air force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Henry Munoz told reporters in Recife late Friday BEA first 2009 p 46 Investigators say they have no confirmed black box signals France 24 com 27 June 2009 Archived from the original on 26 June 2009 Retrieved 23 June 2009 Air France 447 s black boxes search to resume The Christian Science Monitor 17 July 2009 Archived from the original on 20 July 2009 Retrieved 29 July 2009 Press release Press release BEA 20 August 2009 Archived from the original on 19 July 2012 Retrieved 31 August 2009 a b c d Sea Search Operations Phase 3 BEA Archived from the original on 19 December 2013 Retrieved 19 July 2012 Search ships head to new AF447 search zone airfrance447 com 30 March 2010 Archived from the original on 21 April 2010 Retrieved 2 April 2010 Undersea Search Resumes for France Flight 447 Discovery News 30 March 2010 Archived from the original on 2 April 2010 Retrieved 2 April 2010 Chronology AUV Abyss GEOMAR Archived from the original on 24 March 2014 Retrieved 23 March 2014 a b BEA final 2012 1 16 1 1 Search for Flight 447 data recorders to resume CNN 13 December 2009 Archived from the original on 15 December 2009 Retrieved 14 December 2009 Keller Greg 11 March 2010 Search for Air France black boxes delayed The Seattle Times Associated Press Archived from the original on 22 June 2011 Retrieved 16 February 2011 Clark Nicola 30 July 2009 Airbus Offers to Pay for Extended Crash Search The New York Times Archived from the original on 26 January 2018 Retrieved 1 August 2009 Charlton Angela 17 February 2010 Victims families cheer new search for Flight 447 AllBusiness com Associated Press Retrieved 8 January 2011 dead link Estimating The Wreckage Location of the Rio Paris AF447 PDF BEA 30 June 2010 Archived PDF from the original on 22 March 2014 Retrieved 22 March 2014 Frost Laurence Rothman Andrea 4 February 2010 Air France 447 Black Box May Be Found by End of March BEA Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek Archived from the original on 7 February 2010 Laurence Frost Andrea Rothman 4 February 2010 Air France Black Box Search Narrowed by Fresh Data Update1 Bloomberg BusinessWeek dead link Pierre Julien Marie Naudascher La zone des boites noires du vol Rio Paris localisee Area of the black boxes from the Rio Paris flight found RTL in French Archived from the original on 5 July 2015 L AF 447 aurait fait demi tour pour sortir des turbulences AF 447 would have turned around to get out of turbulence Le Figaro in French 6 May 2010 Archived from the original on 8 May 2010 Retrieved 8 May 2010 Redirected AF447 search fails to locate A330 wreck Archived from the original on 16 May 2010 Retrieved 16 May 2010 a b In search of Air France Flight 447 Archived 10 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine Lawrence D Stone Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences 2011 MH370 Malaysia plane How maths helped find an earlier crash BBC News 22 March 2014 Archived from the original on 22 March 2014 Retrieved 22 March 2014 Search for Air France Flight 447 www whoi edu Archived from the original on 9 December 2021 Retrieved 9 December 2021 BEA third 2011 1 12 1 The site p 33 MH370 Malaysia plane How maths helped find an earlier crash BBC News 22 March 2014 Archived from the original on 9 December 2021 Retrieved 9 December 2021 Images of Flight 447 Engines Wing Fuselage Landing Gear BEA Archived from the original on 30 September 2015 Retrieved 8 April 2011 Willsher Kim 4 April 2011 Air France plane crash victims found after two year search The Guardian London Archived from the original on 27 September 2016 Retrieved 16 December 2016 Bodies found in Atlantic jet crash wreckage Reuters 4 April 2011 Archived from the original on 7 April 2011 Retrieved 5 April 2011 Press release 19 April 2011 BEA Archived from the original on 11 March 2014 Retrieved 29 July 2012 Bits of Air France Flight 447 found in Atlantic CBS 3 April 2011 Archived from the original on 4 April 2011 Retrieved 3 May 2011 Remora 6000 ROV Specifications PDF Archived PDF from the original on 19 September 2011 Retrieved 28 April 2011 Press release 19 April 2011 Archived 19 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 23 April 2011 Solid State FDR System including Crash Survivable Memory Unit CSMU PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2 October 2011 Retrieved 27 April 2011 Press release 27 April 2011 Archived 18 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 27 April 2011 Flight AF 447 on 1st June 2009 A330 203 registered F GZCP Information 1st May 2011 Archived from the original on 3 May 2011 Retrieved 1 May 2011 Investigators recover second Air France black box Yahoo News 2 May 2011 Archived from the original on 31 May 2011 Retrieved 1 May 2011 Flight AF 447 on 1 June 2009 A330 203 registered F GZCP 9 May 2011 briefing BEA Archived from the original on 24 September 2015 Retrieved 9 April 2011 Kaminski Morrow David 16 May 2011 AF447 flight data and cockpit voice recorder data is readable Flightglobal Archived from the original on 22 May 2011 Retrieved 16 May 2011 a b 16 May 2011 briefing Bea aero Bureau d Enquetes et d Analyses pour la Securite de l Aviation Civile 16 May 2011 Archived from the original on 8 February 2012 Retrieved 17 May 2011 a b Hylton Wil S 4 May 2011 What Happened to Air France Flight 447 The New York Times Magazine Archived from the original on 13 May 2011 Retrieved 12 May 2011 Rio Paris bodies to be retrieved Agence France Presse 5 May 2011 Archived from the original on 11 April 2017 Retrieved 10 April 2017 Frost Laurence Rothman Andrea 5 May 2011 Air France Victim s Body Recovered Bloomberg News Bloomberg Archived from the original on 8 May 2011 Retrieved 5 May 2011 Vandoorne Saskya 8 June 2011 Air France crash recovery ends with 74 bodies missing CNN Archived from the original on 9 June 2011 Retrieved 8 June 2011 Vol AF 447 ouverture d une information judiciaire Europe 1 Archived from the original on 14 June 2009 Vol AF447 la Gendarmerie enquete Flight AF447 the Gendarmerie is investigating in French French Gendarmerie June 2009 Archived from the original on 17 June 2009 Allen Peter 10 June 2009 Terror Names Linked To Doomed Flight AF 447 Sky News Archived from the original on 13 June 2009 Retrieved 8 January 2011 Air France charged in Rio flight crash investigation BBC News 18 March 2011 Archived from the original on 18 March 2011 Retrieved 18 March 2011 a b Chazan David 17 July 2019 French prosecutors recommend manslaughter charge for Air France over 2009 crash The Telegraph ISSN 0307 1235 Archived from the original on 12 January 2022 Retrieved 18 July 2019 a b Charpentreau Clement 22 July 2019 AF447 Air France sent back to court case dismissed for Airbus www aerotime aero Archived from the original on 23 July 2019 Retrieved 23 July 2019 a b Air France crash Manslaughter charges dropped over 2009 disaster BBC News 4 September 2019 Archived from the original on 6 September 2019 Retrieved 5 September 2019 Press release 1 June 2009 Press release BEA 1 June 2009 Archived from the original on 8 October 2017 Retrieved 8 October 2017 Organisation of the technical investigation PDF Bureau d Enquetes et d Analyses pour la Securite de l Aviation Civile Archived PDF from the original on 8 February 2012 Retrieved 24 June 2011 translation from the French original Archived 27 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Flight AF 447 on 31 May 2009 Press release BEA 5 June 2009 Archived from the original on 24 July 2012 Retrieved 6 June 2009 A large quantity of more or less accurate information and attempts at explanations concerning the accident are currently being circulated The BEA reminds those concerned that in such circumstances it is advisable to avoid all hasty interpretations and speculation on the basis of partial or non validated information At this stage of the investigation the only established facts are the presence near the airplane s planned route over the Atlantic of significant convective cells typical of the equatorial regions based on the analysis of the automatic messages broadcast by the plane there are inconsistencies between the various speeds measured BEA first 2009 pp 37 40 BEA first 2009 pp 38 40 Air France Jet Did Not Break Up in Mid Air Air France Crash First Official Airbus A330 Report Due By Air Investigations And Analysis Office Sky News 2 July 2009 Archived from the original on 12 February 2022 Retrieved 8 January 2011 a b BEA first 2009 p 71 BEA first 2009 p 40 a b Vol AF 447 du 1er juin 2009 A330 203 immatricule F GZCP Flight AF 447 of 1stJune 2009 A330 203 registered F GZCP in French France Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety 2009 Archived from the original on 31 May 2011 Retrieved 8 January 2011 Info Le Figaro AF 447 Airbus mis hors de cause par les boites noires Info Le Figaro AF447 Airbus put out of action by black boxes Le Figaro in French 16 May 2011 Archived from the original on 18 May 2011 Retrieved 16 May 2011 Flight AF 447 on 1 June 2009 A330 203 registered F GZCP Press release on 17 May 2011 Archived 19 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine Bureau d Enquetes et d Analyses pour la Securite de l Aviation Civile 17 May 2011 Retrieved 24 May 2011 Vol Rio Paris L enquete ne montre pas de dysfonctionnements majeurs de l Airbus Rio Paris flight The investigation does not show any major dysfunctions of the Airbus Le Telegramme in French 18 May 2011 Archived from the original on 23 May 2011 Retrieved 18 May 2011 Wald Matthew L 4 June 2009 Clues Point to Speed Issues in Air France Crash The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on 23 March 2014 Retrieved 6 June 2009 Bremner Charles 7 June 2009 Air France searchers find three more bodies The Times UK Retrieved 7 June 2009 dead link Lost plane sent 24 error alerts BBC News 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 8 June 2009 Retrieved 8 June 2009 Paul Louis Arslanian of France s air accident investigation agency We have seen a certain number of these types of faults on the A330 There is a programme of replacement of improvement Air France probe focuses on airspeed instruments Otago Daily Times Associated Press 7 June 2009 Archived from the original on 9 June 2011 Retrieved 7 January 2011 Alain Bouillard They hadn t yet been replaced on the plane that crashed Paul Louis Arslanian It does not mean that without replacing the probes that the A330 was dangerous Flight Air France 447 Rio De Janeiro Paris Charles De Gaulle Press release N 12 Update on anemometric sensors Press release Air France Archived from the original on 22 July 2010 Retrieved 5 March 2011 Malfunctions in the pitot probes on the A320 led the manufacturer to issue a recommendation in September 2007 to change the probes This recommendation also applies to long haul aircraft using the same probes and on which a very few incidents of a similar nature had occurred Navigation Pitot probes ATA 34 EASA 18 August 2001 2001 353 Archived from the original on 13 July 2015 Retrieved 13 July 2015 BEA second 2009 1 18 7 pp 65 67 Press release no 12 Update on anemometric sensors Air France 6 June 2009 Archived from the original on 22 July 2010 Retrieved 11 April 2013 a b Flight Air France 447 Rio De Janeiro Paris Charles De Gaulle Press release N 12 Update on anemometric sensors Press release Air France Archived from the original on 22 July 2010 Retrieved 5 March 2011 Starting in May 2008 Air France experienced incidents involving a loss of airspeed data in flight in cruise phase on A340s and A330s These incidents were analysed with Airbus as resulting from pitot probe icing for a few minutes after which the phenomenon disappeared Palmer 2013 p 53 AF447 Pitot probes Air France Archived from the original on 3 October 2011 Retrieved 22 October 2011 By 12 June all the Airbus A320s A330s and A340s operated by Air France were equipped with Thales BA probes Samuel Henry 31 July 2009 Airlines ordered to replace speed probes linked to Air France crash The Telegraph London Archived from the original on 3 August 2009 Retrieved 1 August 2009 Cody Edward 31 July 2009 Airbus Recommends Airlines Replace Speed Sensors The Washington Post Archived from the original on 8 November 2012 Retrieved 1 August 2009 Flight Air France 447 List of all published press releases Paris Air France 31 July 2009 Archived from the original on 23 September 2011 Retrieved 22 October 2011 Pitot Sensors Air France has received the recommendation from Airbus concerning the replacement of two Thales probes by Goodrich probes on its long haul A330 A340 aircraft The technical instructions for the replacement of these probes will be available next week after which Air France will proceed to modify its fleet of A330s and A340s a b Navigation Airspeed Pitot Probes Replacement EASA 31 August 2009 2009 0195 Archived from the original on 6 April 2012 Retrieved 22 October 2011 FAA Airworthiness Directive FR Doc E9 21368 Archived from the original on 6 September 2009 Retrieved 3 September 2009 This AD requires replacing Thales Avionics pitot probes having P N C16195AA and P N C16195BA at positions 1 captain and 3 standby with Goodrich pitot probes having P N 0851HL at positions 1 and 3 This AD also requires replacing Thales Avionics pitot probes having P N C16195AA at position 2 first officer with Thales Avionics pitot probes having P N C16195BA at position 2 In addition this AD provides for optional installation of Goodrich pitot probes having P N 0851HL at position 2 Alternate location Archived 25 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine Airbus gives new warning on speed sensors CBC News Associated Press 21 December 2010 Archived from the original on 24 December 2010 Retrieved 5 January 2010 Airbus Document Acknowledges Pitot Problem Aero News Network 22 December 2010 Archived from the original on 26 June 2015 Retrieved 6 January 2012 Airbus Issues Pitot Tube Warning Aviation Today 3 January 2011 Archived from the original on 23 September 2015 Retrieved 6 January 2012 a b c Wise Jeff 6 December 2011 What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 Popular Mechanics Archived from the original on 26 December 2016 Retrieved 24 June 2016 Synopsis and transcript of the pilots conversation from 02 03 44 to 02 14 27 in French with English translation and comments Marks Paul 27 May 2011 Report on Air France 447 crash deepens mystery Archived from the original on 29 May 2012 Retrieved 28 May 2011 Kaminski Morrow David 27 May 2011 AF447 stalled but crew maintained nose up attitude Flight International Archived from the original on 5 November 2012 Retrieved 29 May 2011 Rio Paris l ombre d une erreur de pilotage Rio Paris the shadow of a steering error Le Monde in French 27 May 2011 Archived from the original on 30 May 2011 Retrieved 30 May 2011 Talbot David 27 May 2011 Flight 447 s Fatal Attitude Problem Technology Review Archived from the original on 1 June 2011 Retrieved 6 June 2011 Pew Glenn May 2011 Air France 447 How Did This Happen AvWeb Archived from the original on 3 June 2011 Retrieved 30 May 2011 Whitfield Bethany 27 May 2011 Air France 447 Stalled at High Altitude Official BEA Report Confirms Flying Archived from the original on 28 September 2011 Retrieved 17 October 2011 Peter Garrison 1 June 2011 Air France 447 Was it a Deep Stall Flying Archived from the original on 28 September 2011 Retrieved 18 October 2011 BEA final 2012 p 200 a b Otelli 2011 Gilbert Dave 14 October 2011 AF447 pilot Damn it we re going to crash CNN Archived from the original on 17 February 2013 Retrieved 14 October 2011 a b Synthesis Note on Interim Report No 3 PDF BEA 29 July 2011 archived PDF from the original on 14 August 2011 retrieved 29 July 2011 Safety Recommendations from Interim Report No 3 PDF BEA 29 July 2011 archived PDF from the original on 14 August 2011 retrieved 29 July 2011 BEA third 2011 p 4 Information 7 September 2011 BEA 7 September 2011 Archived from the original on 24 September 2015 Retrieved 3 January 2012 Alcock Charles 1 August 2011 Latest Report on AF447 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7 November 2017 Retrieved 4 November 2017 Final AF447 Report Suggests Pilot Slavishly Followed Flight Director Pitch Commands AIN Online 8 July 2012 Archived from the original on 24 April 2014 Retrieved 29 April 2014 a b Ross Nick Tweedie Neil 28 April 2012 Air France Flight 447 Damn it we re going to crash The Daily Telegraph UK Archived from the original on 10 February 2015 Retrieved 16 February 2015 Traufetter Gerald 25 February 2010 Death in the Atlantic The Last Four Minutes of Air France Flight 447 Spiegel Online Archived from the original on 14 July 2014 Retrieved 15 July 2014 Report Airbus design may have contributed to deadly crash News Fox 28 April 2012 Archived from the original on 4 May 2012 Retrieved 30 April 2012 Air France 447 Final report on what brought airliner down CBS News Archived from the original on 15 May 2013 Retrieved 30 March 2013 Air France Flight 447 s lessons four years later CBS News Archived from the original on 8 June 2013 Retrieved 9 June 2013 BEA final 2012 p 174 It is worth noting that the inputs applied to a sidestick by one pilot cannot be observed easily by the other one and that the conditions of a night flight in IMC make it more difficult to monitor aeroplane attitudes pitch attitude in particular BEA final 2012 3 2 Causes of the Accident BEA final 2012 4 Safety Recommandations Palmer 2013 p 19 BEA final 2012 1 16 7 Aspects relating to fatigue p 100 Palmer 2013 p 20 these questions do raise the legitimate question if fatigue could have been a contributing factor to the crew s inability to properly diagnose and maintain control of the situation BEA final 2012 p 24 1 5 The crew had left Paris on Thursday 28 May 2009 in the morning and arrived in Rio de Janeiro in the evening of the same day Vigoureux Thierry 15 March 2013 Crash du Rio Paris la fatigue des pilotes a ete cachee Rio Paris crash the pilots fatigue was concealed Le Point in French Archived from the original on 16 March 2013 AF 445 statt AF 447 Air France andert Flugnummer auf der tragischen Unglucksroute AF 445 instead of AF 447 Air France changes the flight number of the route that had the tragic accident Baseler Zeitung in German 8 June 2009 Archived from the original on 12 June 2009 Retrieved 8 June 2009 AF485 AFR485 Air France Flight Tracking and History FlightAware Retrieved 14 December 2023 The Air France KLM Group will place an order for 50 Airbus A350 family aircraft with purchase rights for 40 additional aircraft to accelerate the renewal of its long haul fleet AIR FRANCE KLM www airfranceklm com Press release Retrieved 26 September 2023 Hradecky Simon 30 November 2009 Incident Air France A332 over Atlantic on Nov 30th 2009 Mayday call due to severe turbulence The Aviation Herald Archived from the original on 23 September 2015 Retrieved 15 July 2014 Flight AF445 Rio Paris CDG on 29 November 2009 Air France Archived from the original on 22 July 2010 a b Crash Air France A332 over Atlantic on 1 June 2009 aircraft impacted ocean The Aviation Herald Archived from the original on 19 July 2015 Retrieved 6 July 2009 a b Ranson Lori 28 June 2009 Air France 447 Two A330 airspeed and altitude incidents under NTSB scrutiny aviationnewsrelease Archived from the original on 30 January 2010 Retrieved 8 July 2009 Probable cause Northwest Airlines incident occurred Tuesday June 23 2009 DCA09IA064 National Transportation Safety Board 27 June 2011 DCA09IA064 Archived from the original on 7 September 2011 Retrieved 4 January 2012 Wise Jeff 18 December 2009 How Plane Crash Forensics Lead to Safer Aviation Popular Mechanics Archived from the original on 18 October 2014 Retrieved 24 October 2014 McGee Oliver 2 June 2014 Five Year Anniversary of AF447 MH370 Deja vu Linkedin Retrieved 24 October 2014 Air France and Airbus face Paris trial call over deadly crash source Reuters 27 January 2021 Archived from the original on 27 January 2021 Retrieved 27 January 2021 Air France and Airbus to face trial over 2009 Rio Paris crash French court says France 24 12 May 2021 Archived from the original on 12 May 2021 Retrieved 12 May 2021 a b Bittermann Jim 10 October 2022 Air France and Airbus charged with involuntary homicide for Rio Paris crash in 2009 CNN Archived from the original on 11 October 2022 Retrieved 11 October 2022 Vaux Montagny Nicolas Schaeffer Jeffrey 10 October 2022 Families of crash victims rain wrath on Airbus Air France Associated Press Archived from the original on 12 October 2022 Retrieved 12 October 2022 Hepher Tim Woo Yiming 10 October 2022 Air France Airbus face angry families in AF447 crash trial Reuters Archived from the original on 12 October 2022 Retrieved 12 October 2022 French prosecutors will not seek Airbus Air France convictions over 2009 Rio Paris crash France 24 7 December 2022 Archived from the original on 10 December 2022 Retrieved 9 December 2022 Vaux Montagny Nicolas 8 December 2022 Families dismayed at trial for Rio Paris Air France crash ABC News Associated Press Archived from the 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Mystery of Flight 447 Two Programmes BBC archived from the original on 30 May 2010 retrieved 31 May 2010 Crash Flight 447 Nova documentary PBS archived from the original on 7 November 2011 retrieved 23 August 2017 Jonathan 2 June 2010 Nova Working on Air France 447 Documentary Nova Air France 447 Archived from the original on 5 June 2010 Retrieved 2 June 2010 Tyson Peter 1 June 2010 Air France 447 One Year Out Nova PBS Archived from the original on 5 June 2010 Retrieved 2 June 2010 link hre, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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