LE BOURGET, France — A confused cockpit crew without proper training to head off high-altitude disaster flew toward it instead, with wrong-headed maneuvers and no task-sharing, perhaps unaware their flight was about to end in the Atlantic Ocean.
Screeching stall alarms and incoherent speed readings from faulty sensors, bad weather in a darkened sky and growing stress make up the chaotic cockpit scenario in the final moments of the Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009. All 228 people aboard the plane were killed.
Friday’s third report by France’s accident investigation agency, BEA, lays out almost second-by-second technical data on the flight’s deadly trajectory but cannot answer the ultimate question — whether pilot error, equipment failure or other still unknown factors caused the crash.
The BEA’s findings raised worrisome questions about the reactions of the cockpit crew — two co-pilots — as the A330 went into an aerodynamic stall and their ability to fly the A330 manually as the autopilot disengaged.
The report expressed broader concern about the state of training of today’s pilots flying high-tech planes when confronted with a high-altitude crisis.
BEA officials said they are bringing together a bevy of experts, from psychologists to physiologists, to try to reconstitute the scene from the crews’ point of view — the human factor that could include potential disorientation. Those findings would be included in the final report expected early next year.
Many of the crews’ actions “seem contrary to logic, and we’re seeking rational explanations,” chief BEA investigator Alain Bouillard told a news conference, adding that the cockpit crew even seemed unaware the plane had gone into an aerodynamic stall. “We understood how the accident came about,” Bouillard said. “Now we must learn why it came about.”
