Clueless In Paris

Frances equivalent to the NTSB-the Bureau dEnqutes et dAnalyses, or BEA-on July 2 released its interim report on the loss of Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330 that crashed into the equatorial Atlantic Ocean early on the morning of June 1. To geeks like me who pore over these things, the interim report is extremely valuable in assembling and organizing in one place many-but not all-of the known facts about this tragedy. It is not, however, a final report and does not state a probable cause for the accident. Its initial findings and some of its details, however, are important. Just as important? The interim report highlights how clueless officials are in understanding what went wrong and how it might be prevented in the future.

Key Takeaways:

• The interim report on Air France Flight 447 details known facts but does not state a probable cause, highlighting investigators' limited understanding without the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
• ACARS messages indicate the crew experienced critical "inconsistency in the speed measurements" (erroneous airspeed indications) shortly before the crash.
• Wreckage analysis suggests the aircraft was not destroyed in flight but impacted the sea in a relatively level attitude with high vertical acceleration and little forward motion.
• Other airliners in the vicinity successfully avoided the convective weather that Flight 447 apparently entered.

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