A pilot navigating Air France Flight 447 knew his plane was about to crash and, in the final moments, shouted out a panicky, expletive-laced pronouncement: “[Expletive], we’re dead!”
Vanity Fair magazine went through the tapes, interviewed several flight crash investigators, and pieced together the story of the final moments of the 2009 disaster over the Atlantic Ocean that killed all 228 aboard, according to the New York Post.
Among the findings: Bad weather, bad pilot decisions and the captain’s extra-marital affair combined to bring about the deadliest crash in Air France history, Vanity Fair reported. As thunderstorms struck, co-pilot Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, was piloting the plane, and he and co-pilot, David Robert, 37, sharply banked the craft up instead of down, the New York Post reported. That led to the plane’s stalling, and ultimately, its crash.
The captain, 58-year-old Marc Dubois, who had been up all night with his mistress and was sleeping in a different area of the plane when the co-pilots banked the craft, returned to the cabin too late to fix the mishap, the Post reported.
A panicked Mr. Robert couldn’t believe they were going to crash, as tapes caught him saying: “[Expletive], we’re going to crash! It’s not true! But what’s happening?”
Just moments later, either Mr. Bonin or Mr. Robert shouted, “[Expletive], we’re dead!”
Shortly after, the plane sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and investigators couldn’t find it for two years.
The captain’s extramarital affair with Veronique Gaignard, an off-duty flight attendant, wasn’t part of the original investigative report of the crash. But it was noted in the official report that he only had one hour of sleep the previous evening, the New York Post reported.
“If the captain had stayed in position … it would have delayed his sleep by no more than 15 minutes and because of his experience, maybe the story would have ended differently,” chief French investigator Alain Bouillard told Vanity Fair.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.