En Plein Air

Air France Flight 447 was a scheduled international transatlantic passenger flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, that crashed into the mid-Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board. The incident, which occurred on an Airbus A330, happened because inconsistent airspeed indications and resulting miscommunication between the pilots led to an unrecoverable stall. The Brazilian Navy recovered the first major wreckage and two bodies from the sea within five days of the crash. The aircraft's flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years after the accident. France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety final report, released at a press conference on 5 July 2012, concluded that the aircraft suffered temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements—likely resulting from ice crystals obstructing the aircraft's pitot tubes—which caused the autopilot to disconnect. The crew reacted incorrectly to this, causing the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stall which the pilots failed to correct. The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air France, as well as the deadliest aviation accident involving the Airbus A330. On 21 May 2026, Airbus and Air France were both found guilty of corporate manslaughter. Each company was sentenced to pay the maximum fine of €225,000 ($261,112).