Investigation reveals pilot errors on Air France crash
PARIS. July 30. KAZINFORM Operational errors by the pilots and malfunction of indication equipment are the main reasons behind the crash of an Air France flight in 2009, investigation showed on Friday; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.
French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation (BEA) released its third interim report on the accident after completing the readout of the flight recorders.
The record showed that the Captain left the cockpit for a rest "without clear operational instructions" given to copilots and was absent when the speed indication was lost.
In addition, the BEA said that "the copilots had received no high altitude training for the 'Unreliable IAS' procedure and manual air craft handling" from their response to the loss of speed indication about four minutes before the recording finally stopped.
On June 1, 2009, an Air France flight AF 447 plunged into the Atlantic about 1,200 km off the coast of Brazil on its route to Rio de Janeiro, killing all 228 people on board.
The wreckage was found on the seabed on 3 April 2011 and the flight recorders were recovered at the beginning of May 2011 after several sea searches.
Given the circumstance of the accident portrayed by the readout of flight recorders, BEA highlighted safety recommendations on four aspects: operations, airplane certification, flight recorders and the transmission of flight data.
According to BEA, further investigation will go on before a final report was made on the accident.