What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

© Andrew Compolo

Two years ago, an Air France Airbus A330-200 was operating as Flight 447 from Rio de Janerio International to its home Paris-Charles de Gaulle Roissy Airport. On June 1st, 2009, it disappeared near its waypoint, TASIL, and killed a total of 228 people. The black boxes were recently recovered from the ocean floor recently in May 2011.

Today, the French Accident Investigation concluded that the A330 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. Neither weather nor malfunction doomed AF447, nor a complex chain of error, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots. 


Now all that is left is to solve the mystery of Yemenia Flight 626 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409. Our condolences shall always be with those who died on those three flights. 


More at: http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877