Air France plane descended at 180ft per second
Everyone on the Paris-bound Airbus A330 were killed. Among the passengers were Irish doctors Aisling Butler, 26, Jane Deasy, 27, and Eithne Walls, 29.
The descent lasted three minutes and 30 seconds on the flight — AF447 — which had left Rio de Janeiro on May 31 2009, the report by France’s air accident investigation bureau, the BEA, said.
Described as “a note” ahead of a later full report, the latest findings showed that the captain had left the cockpit — for a rest period — about 10 minutes before the first stall sign had come on.
With the two co-pilots in the cockpit, there were “several” attempts to call the captain back and he eventually re-entered the cockpit just under three minutes before the recordings from the now-recovered “black boxes” ceased.
After the captain had left the cockpit, one of the co-pilots had called the cabin crew telling them that “in two minutes we should enter an area where it’ll move about a bit more than at the moment, you should watch out”.
During efforts to control the plane, one of the co-pilots announced about a minute before recordings stopped that “we’re going to arrive at level one hundred (a height of 10,000ft)”.
Less than three minutes earlier the aircraft had been at 35,000ft. The BEA said the plane remained stalled throughout the descent and that “the engines were operating and always responded to crew commands”.
Airbus said yesterday: “The BEA’s work constitutes a significant step towards the identification of the complete chain of events that led to the tragic accident of Air France flight 447.
“Airbus is committed to continuing to provide support to the BEA investigation with the objective of identifying all potential lessons to be learnt.
“Airbus is confident that the successful recovery of the data contained by the (black box) flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder will undoubtedly contribute to making air travel even safer.
“The people of Airbus once again wish to convey their condolences to all those who have lost family, friends and loved ones in this tragic accident.”
