In 2009, a plane carrying over 200 people plunged into the ocean in the early hours of the morning after the three pilots failed to save it from disaster. These are the final words that they said.
The chilling last words of the pilots attempting to control an Air France flight as it plummeted towards to sea show that they knew there was nothing they could do to save the 228 lives onboard.
In one of the most notorious air accidents of all time, the Airbus A330 was travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on 1 June 2009 when complications with the air-speed sensor caused by ice and bad weather lead to a complex chain of errors that ultimately resulted in the plane ending its journey at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, killing all 228 passengers on board.
It wasn’t until two years after the accident occurred that search efforts spanning a huge area of over 10,000sqkm lead to the wreckage of the plane being found. Amongst the debris, the all important black box and cockpit recordings were recovered, which finally allowed investigators to determine what went so wrong during the doomed flight.
Harrowingly, the final few words exchanged between the pilots before the plane crashed were stored on these devices and were heard for the first time after the accident. Just moments before the aircraft hit the sea, Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, the first officer and co-pilot, can be heard saying: “[I] don’t have control of the aeroplane anymore now.” This was followed by: “I don’t have control of the aeroplane at all!”
After a detailed air crash investigation, the disaster was attributed to a combination of technical failures with the plane and, notably, the pilot and co-pilot’s inability to detect and respond to these failures and correct the resulting stall of the aircraft, causing it to begin falling from the sky at a rate of 11,000ft per minute.
The plane was travelling in icy conditions which lead to the air speed detector at the bottom of the plane, responsible measuring the forward speed of the aircraft, to freeze over, prompting the auto-pilot to unexpectedly disconnect four hours into the flight. Unsure what was causing the problem and no longer receiving accurate data from the aircraft’s instruments, the pilots were left bewildered and began tilting the plane’s nose upwards instead of pitching it downwards – which is key to correcting a stall.
It is clear from the recordings that there was huge confusion among the pilots manning the aircraft as each try to shout instructions to each other. The flight’s relief first officer, co-pilot David Robert, 37, announced “controls to the left” before assuming control of the plane. However, Bonin also continued to attempt to control the plane meaning that each pilot’s efforts were negated. A loud “dual input” warning can be heard ringing in the cockpit.
As chaos on the flight deck ensued, Captain Marc Dubois can eventually be heard asking his the co-pilots: “Er what are you [doing]?” and Robert replying, full of panic: “We’ve lost all control of the aeroplane, we don’t understand anything, we’ve tried everything.” He repeatedly says “Climb, climb, climb, climb,” when Bonin reveals the devastating unknowing mistake that’s he’s made, crying: “But I’ve been at maximum nose-up for a while!”
In a horrific, split-second realisation of what has gone wrong, Captain Dubois yelling “No no no, don’t climb! No No No!” and hands controls to Robert. Yet, its was too late and the plane was already on an irreversible path downwards. The black box reveals that all the while, passengers were never informed of what was happening in the cockpit during the planes three -and-a-half-minute descent.
Bonin makes a last ditch attempt to save everyone onboard in the final moments of the flight by yanking backwards on his side-stick, cursing and crying “We’re going to crash! This can’t be true. But what’s happening?”. It is unclear who muttered the final words: “F***, we’re dead,” before the plane crashed into the sea, breaking up into hundreds of pieces and killing every soul onboard.
In 2023, both Airbus and Air France were acquitted of manslaughter and the accident promoted brand new changes within the air industry to prevent something similar from happening again, including new regulatory measures on airspeed sensors and additional training for pilots.
