The Tragic Saga of Air France Flight 447

The Doldrums

Back in the day of sailing ships, mariners called this area of the Atlantic off the coast of Brazil the doldrums, because it was frequently too calm for vessels to make much headway. Yet it is also prone to sudden and very violent storms. On May 31, 2009, Air France Flight 447 flew directly into one of these, sending it plummeting into the ocean. There is only a scintilla of hope that any of the 228 passengers and crew will be found alive, making this the deadliest airplane crash since 2001. Chinaview.com, 6/10/09.

Moreover, the circumstances of the crash may make it impossible to pinpoint its cause.

The Captain did not radio in a message that Flight 447 was in trouble, nor did he call in a Mayday, yet the Airbus was designed to send automatic signals if something was amiss. This system showed that the auto-pilot was disengaged before the plane fell off the radar screen, an unusual event for a jet liner during a period of cruise aviation.

The Airbus also sent a signal that its cabin pressure was changing at a sobering rate, which an analyst calculated to be consistent with a loss of 1,800 feet of altitude per minute. WLFI.com, 6/11/09. The debris field from the crash is about 3 miles long, and is expected to expand further because of ocean currents. As of this writing, 41 bodies have been recovered, but more foul weather at the site has hampered the search. Brazilia, 6/10/09. Lt. Col. Ramon Cardosa announced that the search for more remains would continue at least through June 19.

Searchers do not believe they will locate any survivors.

Most air crashes occur during take-off or landing, which means that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders and much of the airframe can more readily be collected for analysis. Chinaview.com, 6/11/09. Most of Air France Flight 447 is at the bottom of the Atlantic, in an area which is very deep and rife with mountainous underwater features. The ‘black’ boxes (actually orange) would provide the most accurate information, but must be located soon or they may never be found. This is because the devices emit a ‘ping’ which can be picked up on sonar, but only until the batteries powering the signal last.

French Junior Transport Minister Dominique Bussareau stated on June 10, 2009, that finding the recorders was the top priority. To this end, the French nuclear submarine Emeraude has been cruising in the region, trying to pick up the pings. The recorders probably lie beneath the Emeraude’s crush depth, but if the sub locates a recorder, it can dispatch a deep-diving submersible to retrieve it.

Meanwhile, Air France executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon claims that even absent the black boxes, autopsies and debris should shed light on what happened to the plane. WLFI.com, 6/11/09. Yet any comments from an airline official need to be taken with a grain of salt, because Air France is going to be sued by the relatives of more than two hundred people. After all the condolences are given, and tears shed, Air France and its insurers will want to find other parties (Airbus and/or component manufacturers) whose product failures may have contributed to the crash. Sorry, but as a lawyer I have defended airline accident suits, and that’s the way it works.

What follows are theories about why the Airbus fell from the stormy sky.

One report indicates that the Airbus may have been flying at an inappropriate speed when cruising through the violent thunderstorm before the plane’s systems failed. CNN.com, 6/4/09. That would require a large amount on speculation, since jets don’t often fall victim to storms. Turbulence rarely tears an airframe apart. Besides, it is common practice for pilots to radio in the kind of inclement weather that could endanger their aircraft, and nothing of the sort happened here.

Of course, a wind shear could have befallen the Airbus, keeping the crew too occupied trying to control the ship that they had no time to radio in a Mayday. But without the cockpit voice recorder, this scenario would be pure speculation.

It is very rare for a lightning hit to bring down an airplane, but a strong hit could theoretically play hob with the craft’s electrical system. Yet the Airbus 330 has an extra measure of protecton against eletrical failure. Even if the ship were struck by a lightning bolt, resulting in a loss of electrical power, an emergency turbo engine could produce enough electricity to keep the plane operating normally. However, the pilot, co-pilot and a passenger of another aircraft bore witness to an ominous sight where the Airbus was in flight.

These people were aboard an Air Comet bound from Lima, Peru to Lisbon, Portugal. All reported seeing a bright flash along Flight 447’s air path. The Air Comet captain wrote: “Suddenly we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light which followed a descending vertical trajectory and which broke up in 6 seconds.” Such an incident, though rare, would not be without precedent.

Air France received replacement air speed sensors for its Airbus 330 fleet a mere three days prior to the crash. Some investigators have focused on the possibility that external speed sensors iced over and gave false readings to the crew. That may be, but finding proof one way or the other won’t be easy; like most of the rest of the plane, the sensors are on the ocean bottom.

On the final day of May, 2009, Air France Flight 447 flew into a violent storm and also into history. It remains for us to recover and bury the dead, and to try to discern why the plane fell from the sky. Hopefully we will learn something that might prevent a similar, deadly incident from occurring in the future.