Air France 447 Stalled at High Altitude, Official BEA Report Confirms

Bethany Whitfield

Friday, May 27, 2011 at 08:03 PM ET

Verified

** This image details Air France 447's path
during its final minutes in the air.** BEA

Key Takeaways:

An official report confirms Air France 447 crashed after suffering a high-altitude stall, descending 38,000 feet in 3.5 minutes.
The incident began after the autopilot and auto-thrust disengaged, with co-pilots making continuous nose-up inputs despite multiple stall warnings, ultimately failing to recover the aircraft.
The captain was out of the cockpit during the initial crisis, and inconsistent airspeed indications further complicated the co-pilots' efforts to regain control of the aircraft.

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An official investigative report confirms speculation that Air France 447, the flight that crashed into the Atlantic two years ago under then-mysterious circumstances, suffered a high-altitude stall before descending 38,000 feet in 3.5 minutes and crashing into the ocean

According to the preliminary accident report issued by the BEA, the captain had just relinquished control to the two co-pilots and left the cockpit when the first sign of a problem occurred, approximately two hours into the flight.