Personal Injury Blog

Report Blames Pilot Error for Air France Plane Crash

August 2nd, 2011
Air France plane crash

All 228 people on board were killed

A deadly  Air France plane crash  could have been avoided if the crew had been trained to deal with emergency situations.  The report blames a series of failures by pilots for the crash which killed all 228 people on board.

Many of the facts surrounding this crash have been public knowledge to Los Angeles plane crash lawyers for a while now, but this report provides new details about the circumstances of the crash.  Air France Flight 447 had left Paris on June 1, 2009.  On its way from Paris to Rio de Janeiro, a few hours into the flight, the plane’s speed sensors had iced.  The aircraft autopilot and auto trust stopped working.  The pilot was not in the cockpit at the time.  He had gone out for some rest for a few minutes, leaving the cockpit to the care of the two copilots.  The plane crashed into the Atlantic.  All 228 people on board were killed.

According to the investigative report, the pilots could have saved the plane from crashing if they had been trained to deal effectively with the situation.  According to the report by the French aviation safety investigative agency, it was the freezing of the sensors that triggered the chain of events leading up to the crash.  When the sensors stalled, the pilots were required to fly the plane manually, but were not trained to deal with this.  The reports say that the copilot made a critical error, pointing the plane up instead of down.  The report says that there were multiple stall warnings, and one lasted 54 seconds.  However, in spite of this, the copilots were not able to identify the situation.

The aviation safety agency has a number of recommendations to prevent a crash of this magnitude in the future.  One of the most important of these is to require authorities to include training for pilots in dealing with stall approach and recovery training, especially at high-altitude.  The agency also recommended that pilots be regularly given training and experience in manual operations of the flight.  It also recommended the establishment of clear protocols for when pilots are on rest, leaving the cockpit in charge of the copilot.

This plane crash can be blamed partly on the fact that the pilot left the cockpit without giving the two copilots operational instructions.  As a result, the copilot was quite clueless about handling an emergency situation.  There were no operational procedures in place that would have prevented the pilot from leaving the cockpit in the hands of a competent copilot.

Air France has blamed the stall warning alarm system for interfering with the crew’s ability to analyze and respond to the situation.  The airline refuses to blame its pilot for the crash, saying that the crash had been caused by a malfunctioning altitude alert system.

 

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