We’re going to crash! … This can’t be happening!”
These were the last words of the first officer as Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 persons on board.1 During the final minutes of the flight, the cockpit voice recorder painted a picture of confusion and frustration in the cockpit, likely due to the crew’s inability to understand what was happening.
The Flight 447 accident, according to the findings of the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA)² was precipitated by loss of three sources of airspeed indications at high altitude due to blockage of the pitot tubes by ice crystals. Subsequently, the fly-by-wire flight control system went into a degraded mode, and the autopilot disconnected, likely startling the pilots.
This required manual handling of the airplane at high altitude — a requirement for which the pilot flying (PF) had no prior training. The PF began a climb to a h…
