Air France Flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew are killed.
Air France Flight 447 (AF447 or AFR447) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. On 1 June 2009, the pilots stalled the Airbus A330 serving the flight and then failed to recover, eventually crashing it into the Atlantic Ocean at 02:14 UTC, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board.
The Brazilian Navy recovered the first major wreckage, and two bodies, from the sea within five days of the accident, but the investigation by France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) was hampered because the aircraft's flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years later.The BEA's final report, released at a news conference on 5 July 2012, concluded that the aircraft crashed after temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements—likely resulting from ice crystals obstructing the aircraft's pitot tubes—caused the autopilot to disconnect, after which the crew reacted incorrectly and ultimately caused the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stall, from which it did not recover.: 79 : 7 The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air France, as well as the deadliest aviation accident involving the Airbus A330.