Air France Flight 447 (AF447 or AFR447) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. On 1 June 2009, inconsistent airspeed indications led to the pilots inadvertently stalling the Airbus A330 serving the flight. They failed to recover the plane from the stall, and the plane ended up crashing into the Atlantic Ocean at 02:14 UTC, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board.
The Brazilian Navy recovered the first major wreckage, and two bodies, from the sea within five days of the accident, but the investigation by France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) was initially hampered because the aircraft's flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years after the accident.
The BEA's final report, released at a news conference on 5 July 2012, concluded that the aircraft suffered temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements—likely resulting from ice crystals obstructing the aircraft's pitot tubes—which caused the autopilot to disconnect. The crew reacted incorrectly to the abnormality, causing the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stall which the pilots failed to correct. The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air France, as well as the deadliest aviation accident involving the Airbus A330.
Aircraft
The aircraft involved in the accident was a 4-year-old Airbus A330-203, with manufacturer serial number 660, registered as F-GZCP. Its first flight was on 25 February 2005, and it was delivered 2 months later to the airline on 18 April 2005. At the time of the crash, it was Air France's newest A330. The aircraft was powered by two General Electric CF6-80E1A3 engines with a maximum thrust of (take-off/max continuous), giving it a cruise speed range of Mach 0.82–0.86 (), at of altitude and a range of . The aircraft underwent a major overhaul on 16 April 2009, and at the time of the accident had accumulated about 18,870 flying hours.
Passengers and crew
The aircraft was carrying 216 passengers, 3 aircrew, and 9 cabin crew in two cabins of service. Among the 216 passengers were 126 men, 82 women and 8 children (including 1 infant).
There were three pilots on the flight: The captain, 58-year-old Marc Dubois (PNF-pilot not flying) had joined Air France in February 1988 from rival French domestic carrier Air Inter (which later merged into Air France), and had 10,988 flying hours, of which 6,258 were as captain, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus A330; he had carried out 16 rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2007. The relief first officer, co-pilot in left seat, 37-year-old David Robert (PNF) had joined Air France in July 1998 and had 6,547 flying hours, of which 4,479 hours were on the Airbus A330; he had carried out 39 rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2002. Robert had graduated from École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile, one of the elite Grandes Écoles, and had transitioned from a pilot to a management job at the airline's operations center. He served as a pilot on this flight to maintain his flying credentials. The first officer, co-pilot in right seat, 32-year-old Pierre-Cédric Bonin (PF-pilot flying) had joined Air France in October 2003 and had 2,936 flight hours, of which 807 hours were on the Airbus A330; he had carried out five rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2008. His wife Isabelle, a physics teacher, was also on board. Of the 12 crew members (including aircrew and cabin crew), 11 were French and 1 was Brazilian.
The majority of passengers were French, Brazilian, or German citizens. The passengers included business and holiday travelers.
Air France established a crisis center at Terminal 2D for the 60 to 70 relatives and friends who arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport to pick up arriving passengers, but many of the passengers on Flight 447 were connecting to other destinations worldwide. In the days that followed, Air France contacted close to 2,000 people who were related to, or friends of, the victims.
On 20 June 2009, Air France announced that each victim's family would be paid roughly €17,500 in initial compensation.