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A 2004 crash foreshadows that of AF447: Pitot probes that falsify the speed display and a crew unable to understand the situation.
By Guerric Poncet
© JOEL SAGET / AFP
Published on
NOTt is January 8, 2004. Five years before the crash of Air France flight AF447 Rio-Paris, an Air Force Mirage 2000 is about to experience its last minutes of flight. The fault, as in the case of the Air France A330, of the Pitot probes, the speed sensors which iced up, pushing the crew to throw the plane on the ground without knowing it. Without of course taking on the same tragic dimension – the pilot and the navigator survived – the crash of the fighter has disturbing similarities with that of AF447.
At 6:26 p.m., two Mirage 2000 Ds (two-seater aircraft, therefore) from the “Champagne” fighter squadron, callsign Conde 336, take off from their Nancy-Ochey base. It’s already dark and the weather…
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