On June 1st, 2009, Air France flight 447 encountered a tragic and unforgettable disaster while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The aircraft met its demise in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the loss of all 228 souls on board, including its dedicated crew of 12.
The search for the downed aircraft was both extensive and arduous, spanning two years before the wreckage and its crucial black box were finally located and retrieved. These black boxes, being essential to any crash investigation, store vast quantities of onboard data and audio recordings.
Upon recovering flight 447’s black box, investigators were faced with chilling audio recordings from the cockpit, capturing the chaotic and dire last moments of the flight crew. Captain Marc Dubois, aged 58, and his co-pilots David Robert, 37, and Pierre-Cédric Bonin, 32, were heard grappling with the unfolding crises.
The data from the black box demonstrated that the Airbus A330-200 had been experiencing severe technical issues. The plane had flown into a powerful storm, causing its speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, to freeze and become blocked, which rendered the autopilot unusable.
With the plane’s autopilot disengaged, the pilots were left to navigate an array of incorrect instrument data about the aircraft’s speed and altitude. This confusion was compounded by poor visibility, effectively leaving the flight crew to fly blind.
As the plane began to stall, the pilots made a critical error by tilting the aircraft’s nose upwards instead of down to recover from the stall, which led to the plane descending uncontrollably toward the ocean below.
During the final moments, the horror inside the cockpit was palpable. One pilot was heard exclaiming, “We’ve lost our speeds!” Another voice, filled with distress, stated, “I don’t know what’s happening.” Bonin, in a state of rising alarm, shouted repeatedly, “Let’s go! Pull up, pull up, pull up!” The panic reached a crescendo with a voice desperately crying out, “F***, we’re going to crash! It’s not true! But what’s happening?”
Those four minutes it took for the aircraft to descend were undoubtedly filled with unimaginable fear and chaos.
In 2023, over a decade past the tragic event, the find and dissemination of black box data played a crucial role in a legal ruling. A court determined that Air France and the aircraft manufacturer Airbus were not guilty of manslaughter concerning the fatal incident.
