The airline, prosecuted for “involuntary homicides” after the death of the 228 people who were on board the AF447 which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, chose to defend itself by the voice of one of its former pilots and instructors, Patrick Weil.
For more than six hours, the former Air France executive, now retired, assured that the company had sufficiently trained and informed its crews about a possible freezing of the Pitot speed probes at the origin of the crash. . “ I won’t have the presumption to say that we did everything right “, repeats Patrick Weil at the helm.
The airline has been on trial since October 10 before the Paris Criminal Court with Airbus for manslaughter, more than thirteen years after the accident of flight AF447 which killed 216 passengers and 12 crew members. That night, the A330 was crossing the Intertropical Front (ITF), a difficult weather zone around the equator, when three probes located outside the aircraft, the Pitot probes, iced over, causing the loss of speed indications.
In the cockpit, this failure also caused a disconnection of the autopilot, a switch to degraded piloting mode and numerous alarms. Surprised, the pilots lost control of the aircraft, which hit the Atlantic less than five minutes later.
” Seasoned professionals »
However, the former Air France pilot does not recognize any error. Training on the procedure to follow in the event of Pitot probe failures? She was adapted, judges the sexagenarian. So certainly, it was taught at low altitude whereas AF447 encountered this problem at an altitude of 11,000 meters, but that’s because it was more complicated to deal with this situation while flying low. ” Who can do more, can do less “Summarizes the representative of the company which does not overwhelm the pilots of Rio-Paris.
On the contrary, he emphasizes that at Air France, the pilots are all ” seasoned professionals “, whose job requires you to exercise your “ critical sense “. “ We can’t train them for all breakdowns, it’s impossible », Still justifies Patrick Weil. The training aims to to arm pilots with a robust method that can be applied in the real world he says. And anyway, no formation can fight the element of surprise.
►Also read: Rio-Paris flight crash: discussions in the cockpit before the crash, a “terrifying moment”
The man does not charge Airbus frontally either, but fires a few arrows at it. When incidents involving Pitot probes multiplied from 2008, “ we relaunched Airbus, we increased our pressure “, he assures. But the builder did not respond.
The questioning of the Air France representative will continue on Thursday. In particular, he will have to answer questions from Airbus’ lawyers.