Fatal Error At 35,000 Feet

The Crash Of Air France Flight 447 on June 1st 2009

 

Into Thin Air 

How does a giant, state of the art, modern commercial airplane, like Airbus A330 just disappear without a trace? 

That question baffled the aviation industry experts, media and public at large on the afternoon of June 1^st 2009 because seemingly that is exactly what happened with Air France Flight 447 or AF447.

No distress signal. No mayday. No trace on the radar. No witnesses. No debris. No wreckage. It was as if AF447 had literally disappeared into thin air. 

From Rio To Paris

This much was known though. AF447 departed from Rio’s Galeao International Airport at 22:29Hrs UTC or 19:29Hrs local time on May 31^st 2009, and was due to arrive at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle International Airport around 11 am the following day. Yet somehow, somewhere over the Atlantic it disappeared after crossing the dateline on June 1^st.

The last verbal contact by Brazilian Air Traffic Control with the aircraft was at 01:35Hrs when it routinely reported it’s position on the flightpath. That will be the last time anyone will be ever heard alive from the doomed AF447. After the blip representing the aircraft left Brazilian radar coverage at 01:49Hrs UTC nobody on AF447 will ever be seen again alive either.

The airplane, A330-203 produced by Airbus, one of the finest aircraft in the world, flew into the communication dark zone over the Atlantic unreachable by radar or ATC radio. Even out of the dark zone, communication over the Atlantic is not the best of quality. It was expected to emerge back into coverage on the other side of the Atlantic, near African coastline to be picked up by Senegal Air Traffic Control at 02:20Hrs but…

It never did. Failing contact with Senegal ATC, it should have contacted Cape Verde ATC at 03:45Hrs. But again, there was no word from it. Senegal ATC kept trying to contact AF447 but there was no word from the plane, no blip on the radar. At 04:00Hrs they contacted Air France Flight 459 flying from Sao Paulo to Paris, which was crossing the Atlantic along the similar flight path that night, and asked them to try and raise AF447 with their own radio, but to no avail.

After further attempts to contact AF447 remained unsuccessful it was time to finally sound an alarm. Senegal ATC contacted the French and Brazilian authorities as well as Air France headquarters in Paris, informing them that one of their aircraft has gone missing.

Search and Rescue - (Phase 1)

Immediately, first responders from both sides of the Atlantic commenced aerial search for the missing airplane. The French from their base in Dakar, Senegal and the Brazilians from the island of Fernando de Noronha.

With the breaking of dawn on June 1^st, the news of the missing airplane started to break too… That the plane that was handed off by Brazilian ATC was not picked up by Senegalese ATC on the other side of the Atlantic.

Soon, the first responders were joined by Spain and the United States in search for the missing airplane.

Grim Announcement

With still no sign of it anywhere by the afternoon of June 1^st, Air France executives and French government officials made a grim announcement; that they had lost an airplane with 228 souls on board. French president Nicolas Sarkozy stated how there are no hope of survivors.

It was a move whose purpose was to squash any hopes in the hearts of the families of AF447 straight away, lest the tinder of hope that there might be survivors motivates them to start making emotional appeals through the media outlets. It was better to under promise and over deliver than to keep false hopes growing.

The executives and government officials relied on a logical conclusion when putting forward the worst possible scenario. Even if everything was fine with the plane it would have crashed by now, simply because it would have ran out of fuel. And since it wasn’t picked up anywhere on the radar again, either on South American or African coastline, most likely it is somewhere in the Atlantic.

But where? At that stage it seemed as if AF447 did a disappearing act into thin air as more and more ships and aircraft rushed into the Atlantic to look for it in what was growing to be a giant search and rescue operation.

When standing next to it, Airbus A330 has an overwhelming appearance due to it's giant size, yet when searching for it in the Atlantic... It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Speculations Abound

In the days that immediately followed, media storm intensified as well as speculation as to what had happened with the missing plane. From such outlandish conspiracy theories that the entire plane was abducted by a UFO, to more realistic theories for this day and age we live in today…

The theory that was looking as most likely scenario to some experts; that it was a terrorist attack and the plane was blown out of the sky by a bomb. DGSE, the French Intelligence Agency, reported that they found two names on the manifest whom they suspected were connected to Islamist terrorism.

Even if it weren’t Islamists who did it, another interesting fact was that Pablo Dreyfus, a campaigner for control of illegal arms and drugs was on board that plane too. Could a drug cartel go so far as to eliminate him by taking down a whole plane? It seemed they would have found a faster and more efficient ways to eliminate him on the ground as oppose to in the air.

What peaked the media interest so much was the fact that at the end of 2000’s, the decade that gave us Facebook, You Tube, smart phones, Google Maps and all sorts of other gadgetry… Here was this state of the art modern aircraft and nobody knows where it is and what had happened to it. There was an undertone of mystery to it.

In the following days an oil slick was spotted near the plane’s last known position and some debris were believed to have been spotted floating in the ocean, but nothing was recovered that would definitively prove the plane’s faith and it only served to fuel further speculation. Until the fifth day of search.

Final Destination: The Atlantic Ocean

Early in the morning of June 6^th 2009 another grim discovery finally brought the whole missing airplane narrative to an end. Two bodies were spotted floating in the water and recovered on board a Brazilian ship, alongside several pieces of floating debris, amongst which was a leather briefcase containing a boarding pass for AF447 from Rio to Paris.

If there was any doubt about the fate of AF447 it was now forever removed. Air France Flight 447 had crashed into the Ocean. The following day the first major piece of wreckage was found floating in the water and recovered too. The plane’s vertical stabilizer or tail. The photos published by world’s media of it being lifted onto a ship became a sad and best known symbol in regards to AF447 tragedy. It was the biggest piece of wreckage found up until that point.

It answered the question of what happened to AF447, but not the most important one...

Why?

To answer that question, another had to be answered first. Where is the rest of the plane? The fuselage, wings, engines… Where is the rest of the wreckage? The parts that are too heavy to float?

Most important of all of course are the bright orange painted Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder or, as they more commonly referred to, the black boxes. Finding them would answer all the questions, and there were many of them that the air crash investigators had.

On June 26^th 2009 the search and rescue operation carried out by Brazil, France, Spain, and the US came to a close. The navies of these countries managed to recover total of 640 pieces of floating debris from a wide area of the Atlantic. 50 bodies too, which were all flown and identified in Recife, including that of Marc Dubois, the Captain of the crashed AF447.

The Eyes Above

Regardless that there is no radio or radar coverage, no fishing boats or cargo ships to see it with the naked eye… There is still one thing that tracked AF447 after it entered the communications dead zone.

One of the numerous satellites circling the Earth’s orbit above, through a system called ACARS or Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.

As the plane keeps “hand shaking” the satellite above it every 10 minutes along it's flight path it sends automated maintenance messages and allows for maintenance crews on the ground to be ready for the plane’s arrival. To carry out maintenance and repairs straight away.

It also helps with scheduling, tracking it’s arrival as it periodically sends out it’s position on the globe. Of course, the airline carriers have to be subscribed to that service. In this case, Air France, one of the most prestigious airliners in the world, was.

Even if  the airline isn't subscribed to it, the engine manufacturers such as GE, UTX or Rolls Royce usually are as they keep records regarding the engines performance. The threat to their corporate reputation is too great in case something goes wrong and they don't have the answers regarding their engines.

The satellite tracked AF447 for only further 21 minutes after it left the radar coverage at 01:49Hrs. The plane sent out a flurry of cryptic maintenance and error messages, together with the very last set of coordinates at 02:10Hrs UTC and then…

Nothing. Not a trace of it. Just the last known reported position AF447 managed to send out before disappearing for good. And that is what the submarines, other submersible automated vehicles and ships on the surface had to rely on to try and locate the AF447 crash site.

Under Water Search - (Phase 2)

The surface search was over, yet underwater search continued.

Working in a radius of 50 miles / 80 kilometers, the navies were all rushing against time to locate the black boxes, which are fitted with the underwater locator beacons or “pingers”, by using sonar. The battery life for black boxes is 30 days and time to locate them was running out.

Of course... That takes into account assumption that the black boxes managed to survive the crash in the first place to end up somewhere on the ocean floor undamaged. Some 10,000 feet / 3,000 meters under water surface.

The second phase of underwater search was completed on August 20^th 2009 without finding either the crash site or the black boxes, anywhere inside the 47 miles / 75 kilometers from the AF447’s last reported position.

BEA Investigates...

Only several days after the plane’s disappearance, BEA, the French air safety agency, launched an official inquiry into the plane’s disappearance, and then crash, after the fate of AF447 was discovered. They were still left to answer the most important question…

Why?

They had total of 25 final ACARS messages that AF447 managed to send out before it’s demise, which don’t exactly spell out what is going wrong in plain language but are highly cryptic pieces of technical information. As the time progressed and they collected all of the debris they discovered something that added even more mystery to the whole case.

Belly First

AF447 didn’t blow up in the air and disintegrate before hitting the ocean surface as would be the case if it was a terrorist plot. Also from the recovered debris it was evident that AF447 didn’t nosedive into the ocean had it been taken down by bad weather or turbulence.

To their surprise, they discovered the plane had hit the ocean intact, belly first, with it’s nose pointed upward. Why did it do so? How could that have happened... It was any one's guess.

For the next two years the case of AF447 was one of the greatest mysteries in modern aviation history. The questions remained unanswered… What really happened with Air France Flight 447? What brings down a super modern aircraft from 35,000 feet in the manner that it did? Why did it crash?

Known Unknowns - (Phase 3)

 

With so many A330 flying around the planet, Airbus couldn’t afford to have the known unknowns. That there could be some glitch with their planes that drops them out of the sky. It was crucial to recover those black boxes and find out the truth.

Therefore the 3^rd phase of the search for the wreck of AF447 in the Atlantic which was jointly funded by Airbus and Air France was carried out from April 2^nd to May 24^th 2010 only to be called off with no success either. The mystery remained unsolved.

Pitot Fault 1x2 / 2x3 / 1x3

Apart from managing to send off it’s last position coordinates when it “shook hands” with the satellite above it at 02:10Hrs, AF447 sent a series of error and maintenance messages. One of them in particular caught the attention of air crash investigators. The message that all others could be traced back to: the pitot fault message.

So, what is a pitot anyway? Well… How does a plane measure it’s ground speed while in the air? When the wheels are not rotating on the runway? By airflow running through these small measuring devices attached to the outside of the craft called pitot tubes.

It is such a small thing, yet it is crucial for measuring airspeed. Without knowing the plane’s airspeed pilots can have all sorts of problems keeping the plane in the air if they have to make a guess.

Investigators were aware that pitot’s on A330’s were failing about one a week on average and there were other incidents involving them prior to AF447 crash, but none were fatal.

Ironically, had AF447 arrived to Paris as scheduled it would have all of it’s pitot tube replaced with new, more up to date model. As it turns out that maintenance item was at least 12 hours overdue.

Icarus Found - (Phase 4)

Fourth and what will turn out to be the final search operation was launched on March 25th 2011. Again it concentrated around the plane’s last reported position, relying on new probability map of where the wreckage might be, drawn up by US consultancy firm Metron. This time, withing a week, the team led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution hit the jackpot.

On April 3^rd 2011 they were successful in locating the AF447 crash site on the bottom of the Atlantic. Some 13,000 feet / 4,000 meters under water surface on a relatively flat part of the ocean seabed was the final resting place of AF447 wreckage.

Together with another 104 bodies, many still strapped to their seats. Brazilian Navy again had a sad task of pulling the bodies out and sending them for identification to Recife. The remainder of 74 bodies were never found.

Black Boxes Located

Phoenix International Holdings, the same crew that located the wreckage of Titanic in 1985 finally managed to locate and recover both of the black boxes a month later. The Flight Data Recorder on May 1^st 2011 and the Cockpit Voice Recorder on May 2^nd 2011.

Not only did they survive the crash, they survived under water for almost two years.

You got to give it Honeywell for building those devices the way they do. Also to all the people who worked to locate them.

Once they found them… That was it. The whole mystery behind what happened to AF447 will be finally solved. The missing time of 21 minutes between 01:49Hrs when AF447 left the radar coverage to it’s last reported position at 02:10Hrs. The last piece of the puzzle was ready to be snapped into it’s place.

The investigators will finally find out the most important things of all… Who was flying the plane? What decisions they made? Why did the plane crash into the Atlantic?

The black boxes were flown to Paris under the judicial seal where information from the memory units was downloaded and played for the first time.

The Crew

Because 13hours flight time from Rio to Paris exceeds 10 hours duty time, Air France internal regulations command that the plane be piloted by three pilots. They were:

Captain Marc Dubois

Captain: Marc Dubois

Age: 58

AF start date: Feb 1988

Flying hours: 10,988

Co-Pilot David Robert

Co-pilot, left seat: David Robert

Age: 37

AF start date: Jul 1998

Flying hours: 6,547

Co-Pilot Pierre-Cedric Bonin and Flight Attendant Marilyn Bonin

Co-pilot, right seat: Pierre-Cedric Bonin

Age: 32

AF start date: Oct 2003

Flying hours: 2,936

The Missing 21 Minutes

As soon as the plane successfully took off from Rio, the crew engaged the auto-pilot.

Dinner service is over, lights are dimmed down and the passengers are trying to catch few hours of sleep. As Cockpit Voice Recorder playback shows, everything seems quiet on the plane itself, contrasted to the severe thunderstorm that is building up outside, over the Atlantic.

- Flight Attendant Marilyn Bonin: Everything OK?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Yes, OK.

- Flight Attendant Marilyn Bonin: Everything OK, no coffee, no tea?

- Captain Dubois: All's well.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: We'll be getting along, see you later.

- Flight Attendant Marilyn Bonin: Thanks. 

Captain Dubois, seated in the left seat, pilots AF447 himself for the first stretch of the way, with the younger of the two co-pilots, 32 year old Bonin in the right seat. After they left the radar coverage, the CVR playback has Dubois telling to his younger co-pilot how they are crossing the Equator.

- Captain Dubois: It's the Equator. Did you realise that?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Ah, I thought so.

It was a dark and stormy night…

At that stage AF447 was about to fly inside a giant storm system raging over the Atlantic. 250 miles wide, with massive cumulonimbus storm clouds extending upwards of 50,000 feet above the surface of the ocean.

The area AF447 is flying through is the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, well known for its stormy weather even going back as far as to the seafarers from Age of Discovery.

One thing that so puzzled the investigators was why did AF447 crew decide to fly straight through the super storm? There were about a dozen other flights sharing more or less the same route like AF447 and crossing the Atlantic, but they were all making diversions and course corrections around the storm system. Why didn’t AF447 do the same?

Most prominent theory was that the giant super storm in front of AF447 was obstructed from their on board radar by a smaller storm in front of it. It blocked the trouble ahead and prevented the crew from realising what is in front of them.

Turns out the real reason for it was something completely different.

- Captain Dubois: We're not going to let a pile of cumulous bug us.

The CVR recording finally revealed as to why did Dubois decide to fly straight through the giant storm system. Because it is Airbus A330. Because IT CAN. As far as he knows, A330s are capable of flying through these type of storms without major issues. And it is hard to blame him from the way Airbus tauts it’s A330s.

- Captain Dubois: It's snowing.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: 209 knots... There is something straight ahead... There is another one behind.

- Captain Dubois: What? Ah, s**t, no...

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I'm dimming the lights a bit to see outside, OK?

- Captain Dubois: Yes, yes...

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I'll turn the headlights on, just to see... Ah, yes indeed.

- Captain Dubois: What?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: It looks like we're entering the cloud cover.

At 01:51Hrs the dimmed cockpit is lit up by a strange effect called the St Elmo's fire. Dubois recognizes it instantly but for Bonin this is the first time he has seen something like that. St Elmo's fire is basically highly charged ice particles hitting the windscreens and discharging electrical blue glow that has an odd and eery appearance.

- Captain Dubois: Ah well... That's all we needed...

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Ah... What is that?

- Captain Dubois: That's all that was missing... Mr St Elmo.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I didn't think there was going to be much of a storm.

- Captain Dubois: It is going to be turbulent when I go for my rest... Well... Better go and wake him up then eh?

Dubois piloted the plane himself until 01:55Hrs, when he woke up Robert who was taking a regulation sleep break to take his place. These types of Airbuses Air France is operating have a special rest cabin built just behind the cockpit.

Before he leaves the cockpit and wakes up Robert, Dubois establishes who is going to fly the plane while he is on his break.

- Captain Dubois: Who is going to land this thing?... You?... Good, OK... He will take my seat.

Robert enters the cockpit.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Did you sleep?

- Co-Pilot Robert: So-so...

- Captain Dubois: You didn't sleep?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: He said, so-so.

Dubois left the cockpit at 02:01:46Hrs.

- Captain Dubois: Well then... I'm out of here.

As BEA investigators found out, the pilot who was flying the plane was co-pilot Bonin, the youngest and least experienced pilot of them all. Robert is sitting in the left seat and Bonin in the right. Bonin has the flight controls and he is in charge.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: OK... Well, that little bit of turbulence that you just saw, we should find the same ahead.

The weather deteriorates even further and Bonin decides to advise his wife Marylin Bonin, one of the cabin crew, via intercom about the turbulence ahead.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I'll call them in the back to let them know.

- Flight Attendant Marilyn Bonin: Yes?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Yes... Marilyn. It's Pierre in front... Listen, in a couple of minutes we're going in to an area... Where it will start moving about a bit. You'll have to watch out.

- Flight Attendant Marilyn Bonin: OK. Should we sit down?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Well, I think it might be a good idea... I'll call you when we're out of it.

The storm really starts to pound the aircraft and Bonin expresses his relief to Robert that they are flying in an A330 and Robert agrees with him.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Bloody hell. Thank God we're in an A330, eh?

- Co- Pilot Robert: Dead right.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Minus 42 degrees.

Robert is checking the radar system and realises they are headed directly toward an area with even more intense activity. He suggests a change of course.

- Co-Pilot Robert: Don't you maybe want to go to the left a bit?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Excuse me, what?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: You can possibly go a bit to the left.

As Bonin steers the plane 12 degrees to the left a sharp smell like chlorine fills up the cockpit.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Holy cow, have you touched the air conditioning?

- Co-Pilot Robert: I haven't touched anything.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Not the air conditioning? What's that smell?

- Co-Pilot Robert: It's ozone.

Robert recognizes what it is, but it seems to puzzle Bonin.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: What's that? Something to do with the tropical zone?

- Co-pilot Robert: No. Ozone is air charged with electricity.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: No? Ah, yes... OK.

The ice crystals gradually start accumulating inside all three pitot tubes until they are eventually blocked.

And then... With AF447 still at it's cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, at 02:10:05Hrs an alarm is triggered with a continuous beeping noise.

The auto pilot shuts off. It is at this point onward that the real pilots are now in charge.

Blue Screen of Death

What follows next, after the 21 minute window where the plane was still tracked only by a satellite handshake, are those crucial additional last 4 minutes and 23 seconds that even the satellite couldn't account for. That extra time which only the black boxes could fully explain.

The alarm that announces the AP shutting off has an immediate surprise reaction from both of them, especially Bonin.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I've got the controls.

- Co-Pilot Robert: Alright.

It is not really an emergency. As the computer has lost forward speed information it cuts out and passes the control of the airplane back to the real pilots.

Instead of following the standard procedure which in layman terms could be closely described as ‘do nothing but a slight speed reduction, apply enough power and keep the plane straight’, Bonin does exactly the worse thing he possibly can. He decides to pull on the input stick back to reduce the speed of the plane.

For the reasons we will never really know but can only guess, he yanks his control side stick all the way back, pitching the nose of the plane upwards and the aircraft begins immediate and rapid climb from it's cruising altitude of 35,000 feet.

Why did he do so?

Industry experts think it could be this... With no indication of valid air speed, the flight director starts giving false information, one of which was a supposed drop of altitude by 400 feet or so, which never happened. It was a false reading.

Owing to his lack of experience, Bonin does a fatal mistake of trusting the false information the flight director is giving him. He keeps his input stick pulled back. In reality, instead of a 400 feet drop, the plane is still climbing rapidly.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: We haven't got a good display.. Of speed...

- Co-Pilot Robert: We've lost the speeds, so...

As the plane climbs towards 38,000 feet it gradually slows down. Much like a car travelling up a hill, if it isn’t given enough gas the car will stop. This is exactly what happened to this plane. As it reaches the thinner air, with gradually slower and slower speed, the wings aren’t able to produce enough lift.

Another alarm starts to sound off continuously. The so called cricket, the loud alarm that keeps sounding off that the aircraft is stalling, warning the pilots that the plane is slowing down.

There is still time to get out of this predicament, by pitching the nose downwards and gaining enough speed as is the correct procedure. Because, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is a jet, and not a helicopter. The plane needs enough airspeed to fly. It can't stand vertically in the air.

Instead of pushing forward on his input stick to lower the nose down, increase the speed and recover from the stall, Bonin keeps the stick all the way back.

The only logical conclusion is that none of the co-pilots believed the plane was stalling.

56 seconds after all of the pitot tubes froze and the crisis began, one of the pitot tube unfreezes and now some valid readings start coming back online regarding their speed and altitude. The problem is… They don’t look valid to Bonin.

At this stage both Bonin and Robert are unsure of what to believe and which readings to rely on. From the point of view of the co-pilots, the on board computer is giving them all sorts of jumbled and confusing readings.

- Co-Pilot Robert: Watch your speed. Watch your speed.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: OK, OK, I'm going back down.

- Co-Pilot Robert: Stabilize.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Yeah.

Robert calls the Captain by pressing the rest cabin alert button, recognizing the gravity of the situation.

- Co-Pilot Robert: S**t... Where is he?

However there is no answer.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: F*****g hell... Is he coming or not?

After reaching 38,000 feet, the plane comes to a stop and starts to gradually drop out of the sky and towards the ocean, belly first with it’s nose pointed up. 

 - Co-Pilot Robert: We've put the thrust on... What the f**c is going on? Do you understand what's going on?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: F*****g hell, I'm not controlling the aircraft! I'm not controlling the aircraft! 

- Co-Pilot Robert: S**t, where are we? What's that there?

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I think we're flying too fast.

And he thinks that because in the darkness of the night, he can't just look outside and see the horizon with his naked eye. He doesn't realize that the aerodynamic noise he is hearing is created by the plane dropping down rapidly instead of flying forward at a tremendous speed.

About a minute or so after he's been called back into the cockpit, Captain Dubois re-enters the cockpit and takes a jump seat behind the younger officers.

- Captain Dubois: What the bloody hell are you doing?

- Co-Pilot Robert: What's happening? I don't know, I don't know what's happening!

- Co-Pilot Bonin: We're losing control of the aircraft!

- Co-Pilot Robert: We've lost all control of the aircraft! We don't understand anything! We've tried everything!

There wasn't any communication between them as to what happened and how they got into it. It is difficult for Dubois to walk into the cockpit and instantly determine that the plane is dropping out of the sky at high rate of speed with it's nose pointed up.

- Captain Dubois: So, take that, take that...

- Co-Pilot Bonin: The problem is that I don't have vario!

- Captain Dubois: OK.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I have no more displays!

- Co-Pilot Robert: We haven't got one single valid indication!

There is still time to recover the aircraft. Inexplicably, Bonin still keeps pulling his input stick all the way back.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: I think we're flying at a crazy speed! What do you think?!

He still thinks the plane is going too fast and moves to put on the air brakes which is absolutely the wrong thing to do. The problem already is that the plane doesn't have enough speed. Robert moves to over rule Bonin.

- Co-Pilot Robert: No! No! Don't put the air brakes on!

- Co-Pilot Bonin: No?! OK!

- Co-Pilot Robert: Don't extend!

The plane drops below 30,000 feet. There is still time to recover. Robert decides to take over the controls without giving the customary verbal acknowledgment to Bonin. Robert doesn't realize that Bonin is still pushing back on his input stick. They concentrate on leveling the wings instead of pushing the nose downwards and recovering from the stall.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: There we are! The wings are back on the level aren't they?!

- Captain Dubois: Level the wings. The horizon. The standby horizon.

- Co-Pilot Robert: The horizon! We're pulling, what do you think?! What do you think?! What should we do?!

The startle effect is full on. Shock. Disbelief that this is all really happening. It is contributing factor to the entire confusion

- Captain Dubois: Well, I don't know! It's going down! No! You're climbing!

- Co-Pilot Bonin: OK, I'm climbing up there?! OK, so we're going down!

- Co-Pilot Robert: You're climbing!

- Captain Dubois: S**t, it isn't possible!

We will never know what was going on in the minds of those pilots, with all that confusion. Exactly what picture they had in their minds as to what was going on with their plane. The stall alarm, after continuously blaring in the background for 58 times now cuts out. None of the crew ever utters the word "stall". The on board computer now yields deadly silence.

The ocean surface is now 20,000 feet below.

Robert thinks he is flying the airplane, but he doesn't realize that Bonin is still pulling his input stick back. Robert is completely baffled as to what is going on, pulling his stick correctly down, but his command is countermanded by Bonin, who is still pulling his stick up. What is worse he doesn't inform Robert that he is doing that.

- Co-Pilot Robert: Wait, I've got the controls! I've got the controls! Haven't I?!

- Co-Pilot Bonin: We're there! We're there! We're reaching level 100!

After dropping below 10,000 feet... That was it. The end is near. The plane has now crossed the point of no return.

- Co-Pilot Robert: Climb!... Climb!... Climb!... Climb!

Finally, Bonin reveals what he's been doing the whole time to the other two.

- Co-Pilot Bonin: But I've had the nose up for a while!

Dubois and Robert finally get the crucial piece of missing information, and realize Bonin was pushing back on his input stick the whole time and stalling the aircraft.

- Captain Dubois: No! No! No! Don't go up! No! No! No!

- Co-Pilot Robert: Go Down! Go down! Give me the controls! Controls to me! Controls to me!

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Go ahead! You have the controls!

- Captain Dubois: Watch out! You're pitching up there!

- Co-Pilot Robert: I'm pitching up?!

- Captain Dubois: You're pitching up!

- Co-Pilot Robert: I'm pitching up?!

- Captain Dubois: You're pitching up!

- Co-Pilot Bonin: Well, we need to! We are at 4,000 feet!

- Captain Dubois: You're pitching up!

At 2,000 feet the last alarm ominously activates. The Ground Proximity Alarm detects the ocean surface below and sounds off with “Pull up! Pull up! Sync Rate...!” warning.

- Captain Dubois: Go on! Pull up!

- Co-pilot Bonin: Let's go! Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!

But it is already too late.

- Co-Pilot Robert: Damn it, we are going to crash... This can't be happening!

- Co-Pilot Bonin: But what's happening?!

- Captain Dubois: 10 degrees pitch attitude-


At 02:14:28Hrs CVR and FDR stop recording. After playing it, the recording left BEA investigators speechless.

Case Closed

 

It took 4 minutes and 23 seconds for AF447 to drop from its original cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, after briefly climbing up to 38,000 feet at 02:11:10Hrs, and then to slam into the Atlantic with a force of 280Km/H, killing everyone on board instantaneously. At that speed it was as if it was slamming into a concrete.

FLIGHT 447 VICTIMS MEMORIAL

Did the passengers suffer? No. Death was painless. However they would be aware that something is not right from the way the plane was shaking during the descent.

On July 5^th 2012 BEA published it’s final report on AF447 crash, putting to rest the incident that captivated aviation experts for more than 3 years. AF447 became a part of aviation history instead of an unsolved mystery.

AF447 is now renamed into Air France Flight 445. Same route. Same timings. Today, 5 years later, AFF445 will fly the same flight path, but there is no doubt that the symbolism of the date will not be lost on the crew.

Your Worse Nightmare

It is your worse nightmare. You clutch your ticket, board the plane, but… What if that is the one that ends up on the news cycle? On CNN, Fox News, BBC, etc. What if it is a part of that miniscule percentage that will never reach it’s final destination? A Rio without a Paris?

There is a good reason why humans have that fear of flying. Aviation has a history of well known disasters. Most accidents are chain events that lead to a tragic outcome. Majority of them occur during take off and landing. Much like residents of New York have realised on 9/11, planes are giant flying petroleum bombs, especially after taking off.

The Ghosts Of AF447

Air France Flight 447 is number 22 on the list of worst air disasters in history by loss of life, with 228 souls on board that faithful night.

Today every serious fan of Flight Simulator video game can recreate this particular disaster on their home computer. And probably pull themselves out of it in the nick of time too.

Yes, there were worse air disasters than AF447 up until 2009, but in it’s case, in the early days, not only the investigators didn’t know what caused the crash, they didn’t even know where the plane was to begin with. Majority of other jumbo jet disasters had eyewitnesses and evidence to work with straight away.

What makes this incident poignant is the manner in which it occurred. Somewhere over and in the middle of the Atlantic, there was a disconnect between technology that flew the Airbus A330 and the human nature of pilots that suppose to have been in control.

And it doomed everyone on board in 4 minutes and 23 seconds that followed.

A severe thunderstorm was raging over the Atlantic while AF447 was flying over the Atlantic, in the communications dark zone, with the least experienced pilot at it’s helm.

With no indication of airspeed a pathway to tragic end suddenly opened as the auto-pilot shut off. And all of a sudden the lives of 228 people on board were in the hands of the least experienced pilot flying the plane.

With two co-pilots flying the plane at the same time, there was a breakdown not only of communication but a sense of seniority, especially when push came to shove.

The captain, once he returned to the flight deck, simply didn’t have enough time to asses the situation properly. Robert was doing opposite of Bonin, attempting to apply the correct procedure, but his efforts were cancelled out by Bonin’s actions. In a word, a complete and utter chaos in the cockpit during the most crucial moments which could have saved AF447.

The pilots didn’t know what was going on and which computer readings could be trusted or not. The end result was the opposite of what should have been done.

These days the planes pretty much fly themselves without much human input. In moments such as the one Flight 447 pilots suddenly found themselves, no wander they reacted as they did. Or rather; didn’t react as they should.

Before the black boxes were located at the bottom of the ocean, air crash investigators over emphasised turbulence and stormy weather in conjunction with technology disconnecting as the main cause that brought down AF447. After the boxes were located, the true picture finally came out, correctly presenting combination of pilot error and technology disconnecting as the real cause behind the crash.

Air industry experts warn that Airbus planes have a fatal design flaw that doesn’t gel well with human nature. Unlike Boeing yokes that move in sync so both pilots are aware of what each one of them is doing, Airbus has two separate control sticks to the side of the pilot’s seats and co-pilots are unaware of what is going on unless they are verbalising it to one another.

In situation such as AF447 went through that system just doesn’t sync with human nature. Of course people will be doing their own thing they think is best way in an attempt to save themselves in desperate moments. But with a Boeing controller at least Robert would be aware sooner as to what was Bonin doing the whole time and not until it was way too late to do anything.

This case brings disturbing questions as to how well are today's younger pilots really trained to fly and how well can they handle out of the ordinary circumstances if the computer crashes at 35,000 feet which would prevent them from crashing the plane itself.

Industry observers are quick to point out that in this particular case demonising the pilots obscures the bigger systemic problem. That pilots today are just not trained enough across the board of all the air lines, not just Air France.

There is too much reliance on Auto-Pilot to fly the planes in this day and age. The specific term for that phenomenon is Automation Addiction. Indeed, it can be argued that today's modern airplanes are pretty much giant computers that fly themselves.

It is hard to believe that stall alarm sounds of so many times on the voice recorder, yet nobody ever uttered the word ‘stall’. Almost as if they couldn’t believe that plane really is stalling.

The case of Air France Flight 447 is a warning bell on so many levels as to how the planes are flown today. It’s flight number and the names of the pilots should be in text books for future generations of pilots, so the plane they piloted and crashed is only an isolated incident and not a vanguard of the disasters of similar nature which are about to come.

It also serves as a case study of how human nature interacts with advanced technology. Especially in the age where Auto-Pilot principles might get transferred into vehicles. Where future might bring self driving cars.

Where you are expected to drive you vehicle out of the garage, input end coordinates to your workplace, hop into your back seat for another hour of sleep, or to do nails, or to catch up with your social media and all the comments commenting on your comment…

Until the Auto-Driver cuts out.