French accident investigators, citing the June 1, 2009, crash into the Atlantic Ocean of an Air France Airbus A330, are calling for changes in pilot training to help crews recognize — and safely cope with — “unusual and unexpected” developments during flight.
The French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) included more than two dozen safety recommendations in its final report on the accident, issued in July. Other recommendations were issued earlier in the course of the three-year investigation.
The final report concluded that the A330’s crash resulted from a succession of events, beginning with the “temporary inconsistency between measured airspeeds” — probably caused by ice crystals clogging the pitot probes — and followed by what the report said were “inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path,” misinterpretations of instrument indications, a failure to recognize that the airplane was entering a stall and “the crew’s failure…
