I think it is interesting that body of the captain was found floating which leads me to believe that he was not strapped to his chair. So who was flying??? :( MAB

the two first officers.the the most experienced one, probably, was in the left side.

I think we should be very careful in bandying flippant monikers such as 'Air Chance' around, or suggesting the pilots made a big mistake, before we are in full possession of the facts, and of course, we may never be in that position.We do not for example, know if the pilots were in a position to actually be able to steer around the storm - what if they had lost some control authority and could not steer around it? I don't know if that is the case, but since nobody else does either, to accuse the pilots of making a poor decision is, at best, an educated guess. And it could possibly be a guess which maligns a crew that, for all we know, may have been trying to do everything they could to avert disaster.Al

When the crew reported that they were experiencing turbulence they said nothing about not being in control. Think carefully about my exact words.1. A decision to avoid a storm is made before you encounter it.2. If you encounter a storm unexpectedly (in a region known for many violent daily storms) why didn't you know, "when everyone else did!!Air France acquired the nickname "Air Chance" after the war when they were crashing Lockheed Constellations faster than they were being built!!at least 6 I believe!!

Yup, I know where the nickname comes from, but that is no reason to perpetuate it when it relates to accidents that took place fifty years ago. Air France lost three Constellations, not six: one went missing over the Atlantic with the cause unknown, one was destroyed by a terrorist bomb, the third probably was pilot error when it went into terrain on final approach into (I think) Nice.I'm not suggesting what you say is incorrect with regard to a possible cause, it may well be the case, but we are talking about the reputation of a lot of people. Until we do know the facts, speculating about the pilots making some error and allying it to a fifty year old nickname from an era when many airlines were suffering the same misfortunes is not exactly very subtle or particularly kind, and I don't think it is warranted.Al

Yup, I know where the nickname comes from, but that is no reason to perpetuate it when it relates to accidents that took place fifty years ago. Air France lost three Constellations, not six: one went missing over the Atlantic with the cause unknown, one was destroyed by a terrorist bomb, the third probably was pilot error when it went into terrain on final approach into (I think) Nice.I'm not suggesting what you say is incorrect with regard to a possible cause, it may well be the case, but we are talking about the reputation of a lot of people. Until we do know the facts, speculating about the pilots making some error and allying it to a fifty year old nickname from an era when many airlines were suffering the same misfortunes is not exactly very subtle or particularly kind, and I don't think it is warranted.Al

Below is why I and many other English pilots refer to Air France as Air Chance. It is a famous and rightly deserved nickname! It might not be very subtle as you say but their record is not good! Plus they crashed Concorde! The French authorities would certainly like to pin the accident on something other than pilot error as legal damages would destroy the airline in that case.Well in Air France's 70 year-long history, a total of 13 reported accidents involved actual loss of life. Here below is a selection of the chronological order of the major incidents: 1940's On the 27th of October 1949, the Boxer Marcel Cerdan, the Violinist Ginette Neveu, members of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the Walt Disney Studios chief merchandiser Kay Kamen all died when an Air France flight crashed into a mountain after two attempts to land at the S

Hello,You can add the A320 Air Inter mount St Odile crash (at this time Air Inter was part of the Air France group)http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-251449.html

The correctional court of Colmar released, Tuesday November 7, the six prevented continued after the air crash landing of theSainte-Odile mount, which had made quatre-twenty-seven died in January 1992, while recognizing the whole civil liability for the Airbus companies and Air France.

On 20 January 1992 an A320-111 (registration F-GGED)[3] crashed into a ridge near Mount Sainte-Odile in the Vosges mountains while on final approach to Strasbourg at the end of a scheduled flight from Lyon. This resulted in the deaths of 87 of the aircraft's occupants (five crew members, 82 passengers), the worst accident in company history. There were six survivors (one crew member, five passengers). The accident was caused by the aircraft's wrongly programmed Flight Control Unit (FCU), a consequence of the crew's failure to notice that the FCU was in [incorrect] vertical speed mode when programming the angle of descent (-3.3 [3.3 degrees]). The excessive descent (3,300 ft./minute instead of 800 ft./minute) took the aircraft below its minimum safe altitude. This resulted in the aircraft's striking trees and a 2,710ft high ridge in the cloud-covered mountains.[11]

Regards.Gus.

Below is why I and many other English pilots refer to Air France as Air Chance. It is a famous and rightly deserved nickname! It might not be very subtle as you say but their record is not good! Plus they crashed Concorde! The French authorities would certainly like to pin the accident on something other than pilot error as legal damages would destroy the airline in that case.Well in Air France's 70 year-long history, a total of 13 reported accidents involved actual loss of life......I rest my case!!!

Air France disd not crash Concorde. The outcome would almost certainly have been the same if it had been a BA Concorde. The primary cause was the high-speed passage of a tyre over a part lost by an aircraft that had taken off five minutes earlier and the destruction of the tyre. The part was the lower-left wear strip from engine #3 of the Continental Airlines DC10. Theall the lower strips were replaced at Tel Aviv on 11 June 2000 and the lower-left strip was later repaced at Houston before the accident on 25 July 2000. No one at Continental Airlines asked why this strip was failing so frequently A likely reason is that Continental's maintenance operations were not in accordance with maintence procedures and rules. The strip was made from the wrong material and the rivet holes need to secure it were not drilled using a template because they were randonly spaced and off-centre. There were 12 rivet holes in the strip but 37 in its support, some of which had gaps of less than twice the hole diameter. Pieces should not fall off properly maintained aircraft - certainly not when they've been replaced twice in about 6 weeks before the accident.Your justification that Air France had 13 fatal accidents in 70 years is meaninless by itself and probably wrong. I counted on http://aviation-safety.net/index.php that Air France has had 46 fatal accidents since 1945. That is over a period of 64 years.On the other hand, I counted that BA plus its predecessors, BOAC and BEA, had 46 fatal accidents since 1943. That is over a period of 66 years.Air France's average rate is 0.7186/year and BA's (plus BOAC and BEA) is 0.6818/year. The combined average is 0.7000/year.The differences between the two airlines are not significant statistically.Do you and other English pilots refer to British Airways as British Crashways?I think you should pick up your case again!

Well, I'm an English pilot and as far as I'm aware the two most common nicknames for BA were 'Bloody Awful' and 'Boeing Always' (when they were accused of unfairly ignoring Airbus Industrie when procuring new types) :( The best nickname at BA is 'Nigel', which is how FOs used to be universally referred to.Al

Hello,Note:All this is far away from the AF447 black boxes .. but ...

Pieces should not fall off properly maintained aircraft - certainly not when they've been replaced twice in about 6 weeks before the accident.

As you seem's very informed about this part of this aircraft not properly maintened .. you had certainly readed the final BEA report of this accident .. were you can also seen as the Concorde was not well maintained (spacing piece not in place on one main gear .. and also no securised water deflector (BA had securised water deflector after a incident involving those!)In english:http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2000/f-sc000725...f-sc000725a.pdfNote:The case is not yet close for the court of justice.A other opinion and analyse:http://translate.google.be/translate?u=htt...fr&ie=UTF-8Regards.Gus.

Well, I'm an English pilot and as far as I'm aware the two most common nicknames for BA were 'Bloody Awful' and 'Boeing Always' (when they were accused of unfairly ignoring Airbus Industrie when procuring new types) :( The best nickname at BA is 'Nigel', which is how FOs used to be universally referred to.Al

I recognise bloody awful. It referred to the quality of the cabin service in the days when cabin crew gave the impression they were more important than passengers. Once on aasking a styweardwess for something she replied "why didn't you ask me the last time I walked past?"

Yup, BA might like to have referred to themselves as The world's Favourute Airline, but I always thought British Caledonian were miles better. As it turns out, BA may well be going down the tubes anyway if recent reports are to be believed.Al

Hello,Note:All this is far away from the AF447 black boxes .. but ...As you seem's very informed about this part of this aircraft not properly maintened .. you had certainly readed the final BEA report of this accident .. were you can also seen as the Concorde was not well maintained (spacing piece not in place on one main gear .. and also no securised water deflector (BA had securised water deflector after a incident involving those!)In english:http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2000/f-sc000725...f-sc000725a.pdfNote:The case is not yet close for the court of justice.A other opinion and analyse:http://translate.google.be/translate?u=htt...fr&ie=UTF-8Regards.Gus.

I am aware of the points you make. However, they were not the primary cause of the loss of 113 lives - the failure of the wear strip was.

Anyone remember American Airlines Flight 587? Happened just after 9/11/2001 in Queens, New York. A structural failure of the Vertical Stab was the culprit. I'm not speculating Airbus has any structural problems whatsoever (obviously their A300 did, though). Of course it was pilot error because of the fact the first officer stomped on the rudder while at high speeds, but 260 deaths from a structural failure nonetheless. Investigators shouldn't rule it out, that's all.I'm sorry if someone has already mentioned that particular crash. I originally hadn't been following this thread to avoid speculations, but here I am. I've tried catching up as best I can.

Hello,

but 260 deaths from a structural failure nonetheless. Investigators shouldn't rule it out, that's all.

And they don't rule it out .. nor the constructors of planes.Structural failure happend when resistance limits of the materials are exeeded.These limits are known to the manufacturer (for testing and calculation) and are converted into limits of flight does not exceed.If those limits are able to be respected by average airmanship .. the plane can be certified for the transport of passengers.If pilots don't respect those limits (or if any external parameter such meteo etc ... interfer with those limits ) .. the structural failures are inavoidables.Piloting a aerobatic Zlin or a Airbus require different behaviour of pilot to stay in the limits permited by the structure resistance.The indestructible plane don't exist, metal or composite.Regards.Gus.

The structural failure on Flight 587 was not really due to the Airbus A300 'obviously' having a structural problem. If that were so they'd have been dropping out of the skies all over the place, and since the A300 has been around for well over thirty years, it has had plenty of opportunity to demonstrate such unwanted attributes if it were indeed likely. Shove a bootful of rudder on pretty much any civilian aeroplane and you risk overstressing it in certain flight regimes, just as overspeeding will bust the wings and yanking the stick back will similarly bend things.In the case of Flight 587, the NTSB concluded that although there are questions to be asked about the composite bolts on the A300 (which were found to have sheared even though the regular alloy ones in the same location had not), it was the actions of the first officer on 587 overcontrolling the rudder following his over zealous attempts to smooth the flight out when it hit a 747's wake turbulence, which led to the flight's demise. It was further noted that it was not the first time the FO on 587 had been associated with that kind of behaviour according to pilots who had crewed up with him, with one or two being very unhappy with the guy indeed and actually not letting him fly certain sectors of a flight profile.Of course it is not always nice to lay the blame at the door of someone who is killed in an incident and is not around to defend his name, but it does seem in the case of the FO on 587 from what his colleagues reported, that this particular cap fits, and he was evidently wearing it.I guess we may find out the true nature of aircraft with extensive use of composites if and when the A350 and 787 start flying, and especially the 787, which uses a lot of them. With a lot of advances in aircraft design, often a few planes have to drill some holes in the ground before everything is known, which is unfortunate, but it has always been the case with aviation. Anyone with a PPL will confirm that you get a 'oh, really?' response when talking to insurances companies, and those premiums go up accordingly.Al

I am aware of the points you make. However, they were not the primary cause of the loss of 113 lives - the failure of the wear strip was.

Every accident is the result of a chain of events, whereif any one of those events was prevented, the accident would not have happened. The lack of a FOD inspection prior to takeoff can just as easily be the primary cause. The lack of address by the manufacturer to a known and previously seen failure mode of the fuel tanks can also be labeled a primary cause of the loss of 113 lives. What one decides to call "primary cause" is only a result of where one sits and whom one wants to cast the blame towards. But in truth, numerous events that happened that day, and through the years before the crash, are equally to blame.