Description
On 1 June 2009, an Air France Airbus A300-203 dissappeared over the Atlantic Ocean while transiting the ITCZ, a belt of Thunderstorm activity. The accident is the subject of an on-going investigation by the French BEA.
Interim Report
On 2 July 2009, the BEA published an Interim Report.
This is the Summary from that Report:
"On 31 May 2009, flight AF447 took off from Rio de Janeiro Galeão airport bound for Paris Charles de Gaulle. The airplane was in contact with the Brazilian ATLANTICO ATC centre on the INTOL – SALPU – ORARO route at FL350. There were no further communications with the crew after passing the INTOL point. At 2 h 10, a position message and some maintenance messages were transmitted by the ACARS automatic system. Bodies and airplane parts were found from 6 June 2009 onwards by the French and Brazilian navies."
On the basis of the first factual elements gathered in the course of the investigation, the investigators established a number of facts, including (extract):
"...the airplane had taken off from Rio de Janeiro without any known technical problems, except on one of the three radio handling panels,
no problems were indicated by the crew to Air France or during contacts with the Brazilian controllers,
no distress messages were received by the control centres or by other airplanes,
there were no satellite telephone communications between the airplane and the ground,
the last radio exchange between the crew and Brazilian ATC occurred at 1 h 35 min 15 s. The airplane arrived at the edge of radar range of the Brazilian control centres,
at 2 h 01, the crew tried, without success for the third time, to connect to the Dakar ATC ADS-C system,
up to the last automatic position point, received at 2 h 10 min 35 s, the flight had followed the route indicated in the flight plan,
the meteorological situation was typical of that encountered in the month of June in the inter-tropical convergence zone,
there were powerful cumulonimbus clusters on the route of AF447. Some of them could have been the centre of some notable turbulence,
several airplanes that were flying before and after AF 447, at about the same altitude, altered their routes in order to avoid cloud masses,
twenty-four automatic maintenance messages were received between 2 h 10 and 2 h 15 via the ACARS system. These messages show inconsistency between the measured speeds as well as the associated consequences,
before 2 h 10, no maintenance messages had been received from AF 447, with the exception of two messages relating to the configuration of the toilets,
the operator’s and the manufacturer’s procedures mention actions to be undertaken by the crew when they have doubts as to the speed indications,
the last ACARS message was received towards 2 h 14 min 28 s,...
...the first bodies and airplane parts were found on 6 June,
the elements identified came from all areas of the airplane,
visual examination showed that the airplane was not destroyed in flight ; it appears to have struck the surface of the sea in a straight line with high vertical acceleration."
TO VIEW/DOWNLOAD THE REPORT CLICK HERE
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