AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 447
On June 1, 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, while en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. All 228 people on board were killed.
The Flight 447 was a scheduled international passenger flight. The aircraft involved in the accident, was an Airbus A330-203, registered as F-GZCP. It was delivered new to Air France on April 18, 2005. The pilot-in-command was captain Marc Dubois, who had 10 988 hours of flying experience. The first officers were David Robert and Pierre-Cédric Bonin. Robert had 6547 hours of flying experience. He had transitioned from a pilot to a management job at the airline's operations center. He served as a pilot on this flight, in order to maintain his flying credentials. Bonin had 2936 hours of flying experience. As the duration of the flight was 13 hours, it was crewed by three pilots. With three pilots on board, each can take a break in the rest cabin, which is situated behind the cockpit.
The Flight 447 departed from Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport on May 31, 2009 at 22:29 UTC. The last message from the Flight 447 was received at 01:35 UTC, when the crew informed the Atlantic Area Control Centre, that they had passed the waypoint INTOL, located in the Atlantic Ocean, 565 kilometers off Natal, on Brazil's north-eastern coast. The aircraft left Brazilian Atlantic radar surveillance at 01:49 UTC, and entered a communication dead zone. In accordance with common practice, captain Dubois had sent first officer Robert for the first rest period, with the intention of taking the second break himself. At 01:55 UTC, he woke Robert. After having attended the briefing between the two co-pilots, he left the cockpit to rest at 02:01 UTC. At 02:06 UTC, the pilot warned the cabin crew, that they were about to enter an area of turbulence. Shortly after this, the aircraft encountered icing conditions, and ice crystals started to accumulate in the pitot tubes, which measure how fast the aircraft is moving through the air. At 02:10 UTC, the autopilot disengaged, because the blocked pitot tubes were no longer providing valid airspeed information, and the aircraft transitioned from normal law to alternate law 2. The engines' auto-thrust systems disengaged three seconds later. As pilot flying, the first officer Bonin took control of the aircraft via the side stick priority. Without the autopilot, the aircraft started to roll to the right due to turbulence, and Bonin reacted by deflecting his side-stick to the left. One consequence of the change to alternate law, was an increase in the aircraft's sensitivity to roll, and the pilot's input over-corrected. During the next 30 seconds, the aircraft rolled alternately left and right. At the same time, Bonin abruptly pulled back on his side-stick, raising the nose. This action was unnecessary and excessive under the circumstances. The aircraft's stall warning sounded briefly twice, due to the angle of attack tolerance being exceeded, and the aircraft's recorded airspeed dropped sharply from 507 km/h to 96 km/h. The aircraft's angle of attack increased, and the aircraft started to climb above its cruising level of 35 000 feet. At 02:10 UTC, after displaying incorrectly for half a minute, the left-side instruments recorded a sharp rise in airspeed to 413 km/h. At 02:11 UTC, the aircraft had climbed to its maximum altitude of around 38 000 feet, where its angle of attack was 16 degrees. As the aircraft began to descend, the angle of attack rapidly increased toward 30 degrees. The other consequence of the change to alternate law, was that 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, in alternate law this did not happen. The wings lost lift and the aircraft stalled. In response to the stall, first officer Robert took over control of the aircraft. Robert pushed his control stick forward, to lower the nose and recover from the stall. However, at the same time Bonin was still pulling his control stick back. The inputs cancelled each other out, and triggered a dual input warning. At 02:11 UTC, captain Dubois returned to the cockpit, after being summoned by first officer Robert. Noticing the various alarms going off, he asked the two co-pilots, what they were doing. The angle of attack had then reached 40 degrees, and the aircraft had descended to 35 000 feet. From there until the end of the flight, the angle of attack never dropped below 35 degrees. Captain Dubois realized, that Bonin was causing the stall, and shout him to stop climbing. The aircraft was now too low to recover from the stall, and it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The flight data recordings stopped at 02:14 UTC.
With 228 fatalities, Flight 447 remains the deadliest accident involving the Airbus A330 aircraft.
NOTABLE AVIATION ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS