On June 1, 2009, tragedy struck when an Air France flight carrying 12 crew members and 216 passengers crashed during its journey from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The aircraft disappeared from radar while traversing a storm over the Atlantic Ocean, claiming the lives of all on board.
Within a mere four minutes and 24 seconds, the plane plummeted a staggering 11,500 meters. It is believed that the aircraft's speed sensors may have become iced up, leading to the disengagement of the autopilot.
Although debris was sighted in the ocean shortly after the crash, it took nearly two years to recover the crucial flight data from the black box.
The chilling audio recordings captured the voices of Marc Dubois, 58, David Robert, 37, and Pierre-Cédric Bonin, 32, expressing their apprehensions in the final moments before the plane descended into the water. "We've lost our speeds," one of the pilots can be heard saying, as the indicators erroneously displayed an altitude loss.
"I don't know what's happening," another voice laments.
With the autopilot disengaged, the responsibility fell upon the three pilots. They attempted to raise the plane's nose, but this action resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Dubois, who was asleep at the time, woke up too late to rectify the situation.
Based on the recordings, investigators reconstructed a simulation depicting the harrowing final moments of the aircraft. As the plane descended towards the ocean, Bonin's voice pleaded, "Let's go! Pull up, pull up, pull up."
"Fuck, we're going to crash! It's not true! But what's happening?" Robert exclaimed.
The identity of the subsequent speaker remains unclear, but the final recording captures one person uttering, "Fuck, we're dead."
According to the French air investigations authority, the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA), the cockpit crew failed to respond appropriately to the situation and lacked the necessary training to manually fly the plane at high altitude once the autopilot disengaged.
While Air France and Airbus denied allegations of negligence, Air France contended that the alarms had confounded the pilots in command.
In a recent court ruling in Paris, both Air France and Airbus were acquitted of manslaughter charges in relation to the fatalities. This decision left David Koubbi, representing the families of several passengers, bewildered. He stated that the ruling was "incomprehensible" and expressed the devastation and hindrance experienced by the families in mourning their loved ones.