The tragic events surrounding Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, offer a haunting glimpse into the chaos and fear that ensued in the cockpit during the flight’s final moments. The flight was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when all 228 people on board were killed after the Airbus A330-203 crashed into the ocean.
Chilling audio recordings from the cockpit capture the desperate conversations between captain Marc Dubois and his two co-pilots, David Robert and Pierre-Cédric Bonin, as they faced the plane’s impending doom. The jet disappeared without any authorities being alerted, leaving only the panicked voices of the pilots as evidence of their final moments.
Days after the crash, debris from the Air France jet was discovered floating in the ocean, triggering a lengthy search for the black box recorders, which cost approximately £27 million and lasted two years. These recorders revealed crucial information about what had gone wrong during the flight.
The recordings showed that the plane’s speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, had become blocked and iced up as the jet attempted to navigate through a storm on its way to Paris. This malfunction led to faulty data being produced by the plane’s systems, which ultimately disabled the autopilot and left the pilots grappling with confusing speed and altitude readings.