Airline passenger news and views
19 May 2012 | Sign In
Air France flight…two years on, fresh evidence emerges
Pilot of doomed Air France flight may not have been in the cockpit when tragedy struck
|
Kayte Platts Wednesday 25 May 2011 |
The pilot of the Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean nearly two years ago was not in the cockpit when the plane ran into trouble.
A leading German news magazine quoted an expert who said captain Marc Dubois, 58, could be heard on the black box recordings rushing into the cockpit when the plane encountered bad weather.
'He gave both co-pilots instructions on how to save the plane,' the expert, who was not named, told the magazine.
Air France flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, four hours into a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew died.
The plane wreckage was found in April, about 1,000 kilometres off the North-East coast of Brazil.
Until now, it had been thought that the crew of the Airbus A330 flew directly into a bad weather front as other planes flew around it
However, according to the magazine, information from the flight data recorder - which was recently found with the other so-called black box, the cockpit voice recorder - amid the plane wreckage at the bottom of the ocean, now proves otherwise.
The flight path showed clearly that the crew had tried very hard to chart a smooth course through the storm clouds, but unfortunately had been unsuccessful. However according to the report there had been no indications that they had encountered increased turbulence during this time.
The data did show, however, was that ice crystals caused by the bad weather had clogged up the pitot tube, an instrument used to measure airspeed, the experts told Spiegel.
After the tube malfunctioned the plane lifted steeply, which could have caused the engine to stall and the plane to crash, they added.
| Comments | Post a comment |
|
David Langton 2 June 2011, 07:42AM | |
I do not know how normal it is for the Captain not to be in the cockpit. It sounds like there were three qualified crew, probably one junior on training. | |
| Rating (0) | |
|
No one 28 June 2011, 11:28AM | |
Pilots leave to cockpit to go to the toilet, they are human beinsg aswell and are allowed to go to the toilet so the pilot not being in the cockpit is a normal thing. there were also two other pilots as mentioned, this is normal for very long flights where 3 flight crew are needed. doesn't mean the third pilot was training. people need to check the facts before making comments. | |
| Rating (0) | |
