The Airbus A330 Disaster

On June 1st, it has been 15 years since the crash of the Air France Airbus A330-203 passenger airliner, which became the largest tragedy in the history of civil aviation in France and is currently among the thirty deadliest in the world.

The aircraft, with registration number F-GZCP, was operating flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. On board were 216 passengers, including 8 children. The crew of 12 was led by the very experienced 58-year-old Marc Dubois, who had flown almost 11,000 hours during his career, over 6,200 of which were as a captain.

The flight departed on May 31 at 19:29 local time. At 02:20 on June 1, the last automatic message from the aircraft was received: "Turbulence. Autopilot disengaged." After that, communication was lost. An hour later, the Brazilian Air Force began a search and rescue operation from their side of the Atlantic. On the other side, French reconnaissance aircraft, based in Dakar (Senegal), took off. The search was hampered by bad weather.

The first wreckage of the airliner was found in the ocean on June 2, 650 km northeast of the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha. It became clear that all 228 people on board had perished. The search continued until June 26, and a total of 50 bodies and 640 pieces of aircraft debris were recovered from the water. However, the flight recorders could not be found, leaving only theories about the causes of the crash.

A breakthrough occurred only two years later, when the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were found. The search for the remains of the victims continued. By June 3, 2011, a total of 154 bodies had been recovered.

The French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) released its final report on July 5, 2012. The main cause of the crash of flight AF447 was identified as a discrepancy in speed readings, likely due to the blockage of air pressure sensors by ice crystals. This led to the autopilot disengaging. Switching to manual control, the crew made a series of errors, including failing to interpret the backup speed indicators and determining which readings were accurate. The aircraft was manually flown into critical angles of attack. Although the stall warning sounded for 54 seconds, the pilots did not respond properly. When the stall began, the crew failed to recognize it and took no action to recover the aircraft from its extremely dangerous position. The situation then became hopeless, although the pilots attempted to regain control of the airliner.