All 228 passengers on board Air France Flight 447 died
A commercial airplane disaster dubbed the ‘Titanic of the skies’ killed all 228 passengers on board.
Air France Flight 447, scheduled to fly from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009.
A total of 12 crew members and 216 passengers were killed.
The state-of-the-art Airbus A330 was at an altitude of 35,000 feet, when the flight encountered a severe thunderstorm over the Atlantic Ocean.
All 228 passengers on board the Air France Flight 447 died (Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
But the issue wasn’t put fully on the weather after technical failures and human error appeared to play their part.
The France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) later determined that aircraft’s pitot tubes, which measure airspeed, became obstructed by ice, causing them to send faulty speed readings to the cockpit.
After the autopilot was disengaged, the pilots were left to fly manually.
With incorrect data being fed to the pilots, a series of misjudgments were said to have taken place.
Instead of stabilising the aircraft, the pilot pulled the nose up, which caused the plane to enter an aerodynamic stall, which means the wings lose lift and the plane starts to fall.
Sadly, the crew were unable to take control of the plane as its decent to the ocean.
Two years later, in 2011, the aircraft was finally recovered on the ocean floor by search teams.
The wreckage was found two years later at sea (Getty Stock Images)
Chilling audio footage of captain Marc Dubois, 58, and his two co-pilots David Robert, 37, and Pierre-Cédric Bonin, 32, was later revealed to the public.
On the recording, one pilot began: “We’ve lost our speeds!”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” another concerned voice said.
Bonin then was later heard exclaiming: “Let’s go! Pull up, pull up, pull up!”
“F***, we’re going to crash! It’s not true! But what’s happening?” Robert screamed.
It’s unclear who spoke next, but they seemed to know their fate as someone said: “F***, we’re dead.”
The incident is nicknamed the ‘Titanic of the skies’, sharing similarities with how the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 15 April 1912.
Approximately 1,500 out of the 2,224 passengers and crew died following a collision with an iceberg.
Out of the 20 lifeboats that were on the ship, some of them were launched out at sea completely empty due to disorganisation.
Like the infamous Titanic disaster, technical failure exacerbated by human error led to a huge number of casualties.
Featured Image Credit: Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images/Getty Stock Images
