Motley Rice LLC is examining the crash of Air France Flight 447 and accepting clients. Aviation attorneys at Motley Rice are currently litigating aviation cases in France involving the August 16, 2005 crash of West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 to Martinique. We are also litigating the August 2, 2005 crash of Air France Flight 358 (an Airbus 340) in Toronto, Canada, and the July 17, 2007 crash of TAM Airlines Flight 3054 (an Airbus 320) in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Litigation stemming from plane crash disasters may be brought in many different countries, including the victims’ places of residence, where the airline and manufacturers conduct business, and the flight’s origination and destination. Specifically, the United States, France, Brazil, Germany and other countries could exercise jurisdiction.
Motley Rice’s capabilities and resources allow the firm to take an active role in most any plane crash investigation throughout the world. With our team’s aviation industry knowledge, we can take a comprehensive approach in seeking answers and in relieving client burdens related to litigation. As one of the largest plaintiffs’ firms in the United States, Motley Rice, with appropriate co-counsel, can initiate aviation litigation in the United States or foreign countries for clients residing almost anywhere in the world.
If you or someone you know is interested in seeking legal recourse due to wrongful death as a result of this accident, please contact Motley Rice aviation attorney and former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo (DC, MD, MO, SC) toll free at 1-800-868-6456 or mschiavo@motleyrice.com.
Air France Flight 447 Disappears in the Atlantic Ocean
Air France Flight 447 disappeared from radar on June 1, 2009, en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. The 216 passengers and 12 crew members included 126 men, 82 women, seven children and one baby. The passengers represented 30 countries, including 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilian citizens and two Americans.
The last contact was at approximately 11:14 p.m. local Brazilian time and consisted of a series of automated maintenance reports transmitted via satellite from the airplane to Air France computers. In normal times, these status reports on various aircraft systems are used to plan maintenance at the destination, but in this case, they may be the only clues to the disappearance of the aircraft.
The last regular transmission from the aircraft was three and a half hours into the flight. Pilots on transoceanic flights radio in at established intervals, but the pilots did not make the required communications after 10:48 p.m. At approximately 11:00 p.m., four hours into the flight, the aircraft hit a large area of turbulence. Starting at approximately 11:14 p.m., automatic messages from the plane were transmitted by the aircraft itself. These final transmissions lasted for about one minute and ended at 11:15 p.m.
The accident aircraft, an Airbus 330, was four years old and last had routine maintenance on April 16, 2009. It was equipped with life rafts, life vests and flotation seat cushions. While the aircraft itself will not float, many items on the aircraft will float.
The first bodies of the 228 victims aboard the flight were found Saturday, June 6, 2009, some 600 miles off of the northeast coast of Brazil near the archipelago known as San Pedro and Sao Paulo. This search area lies southeast of the flight’s last transmission. This could be attributed to the pilots attempting to circumvent bad weather, the pilots losing their bearings, or the pilots attempting to turn around mid-flight.
As of June 22, 50 bodies had been pulled from the Atlantic, 11 of which were identified, though the names of those victims identified have not yet been released. Though hundreds of pieces of the wreckage have been recovered, French and Brazilian authorities continue the search for the aircraft's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
Air France continues to attempt to contact the families of the 228 victims aboard the doomed flight. On June 19, the airline reported that they would pay each family approximately €17,500 ($24,500) in initial compensation for each victim. This initial payment will very likely be deducted from any future compensation from the airline.
The Aftermath and Investigation of Air France Flight 447
As an international flight, the aftermath of the flight's disappearance is governed by international treaty law, including the Warsaw Treaty and Montreal Conventions. These treaty provisions provide that the airline is automatically liable and responsible for all actual damages and losses sustained by Air France passengers. The victims’ attorneys do not have to prove the airline’s liability, but only the damages to the victims and their families. Air France, France and Brazil have removed caps on victims’ actual damages.
The French BEA and the United States Transportation National Safety Board (NTSB) are handling the investigation. The BEA will likely request the participation of the CENIPA, Brazil’s air crash investigation agency. The United States NTSB is involved because the engines on the aircraft were General Electric turbofan engines, designed and manufactured in the United States.
The investigators will initially focus on automated transmissions from the aircraft to the Air France maintenance base sent via satellite communications. There were no pilot communications during the last minutes of flight. There is no radar coverage over most of the world’s oceans. Once out of the radar range of the mainland, air traffic control is achieved by radio telephone communications.
Maintenance records and reports often provide the vital clues to what caused a plane to crash. The aircraft reported electrical short circuits, the failure of multiple systems and the loss of cabin pressure. These items combined suggest a catastrophic loss of the aircraft. According to protocol, the investigation will also look at what happened on the ground in Brazil in the last hours of this plane’s history. Authorities will determine the identity of and question every person who came in contact with the aircraft or persons boarding the aircraft. They will also examine any parts provisioners and fuelers, caterers, ground personnel, airport personnel, cargo on board and freight shippers, and any other entity that could have compromised the safety of the flight.
The search continues to focus on finding the remaining bodies, effects, pieces of the aircraft and the plane’s black boxes. The black boxes, orange in color, contain the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), which contains the last 30 minutes of the flight deck communications, and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), which records approximately 300 different facts about the accident flight. The FDR data is similar to the data automatically transmitted by the aircraft in the minute before it was lost, but more extensive. It may be difficult to find the black boxes in parts of the Atlantic Ocean. The boxes’ automated locator signals, often called “pingers,” can be detected in up to 14,000 feet of water but the region where pieces of the wreckage has been discovered has waters that are up to 1.5 miles deep. This region is also covered by an underwater mountain range, making the search for the black boxes that much more difficult. The batteries which power the “pingers” will start to power down within the three weeks following the crash and eventually will fade into silence.
A New Theory: Pitot Tubes
In September 2007, Airbus recommended that airlines replace the Thales SA speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, on A320, A330 and A340 Airbus models. The older pilot tubes were at risk of malfunctioning and therefore were to be replaced with a newer, improved model. On April 27, 2009, Air France began replacing the pitot tubes on its fleet of the Airbus A330 model and expected to complete those replacements in “the coming weeks.”
A pitot tube is an L-shaped metal tube which is attached to the wing of an aircraft and is heated in order to prevent icing. If a pitot tube failed, iced-over or became blocked, an airspeed sensor could fail, thus leading the aircraft’s controlling computer to either accelerate or decelerate inappropriately. The accident aircraft had not yet had its pitot tubes replaced.
On June 8, 2009, a French pilots’ association, ALTER, issued an internal memo to Air France pilots advising them to “REFUSE ALL FLIGHTS ON A330/A340 WHICH DO NOT HAVE AT LEAST TWO CHANGED PITOT [TUBES].” On June 9, 2009, Air France pledged to ensure that all flights operating A330s and A340s would be equipped with at least two new pitot tubes. In addition to Air France, other airlines including U.S. Airways and Delta Airlines are replacing the pitot tubes of their aircraft in an abundance of caution.
Stormy Weather
Although weather is a potential factor in this crash, it does not appear to be a prime factor at this time. The pilots’ last voice transmissions at approximately 10:33 p.m. are reported to have mentioned severe turbulence. The fact that the pilots did not communicate or send messages to Air France in the minutes in which the plane was automatically transmitting malfunction messages suggests that the pilots were unable to communicate because of their physical condition or because the plane’s deteriorating condition required their full attention.
During the flight, storm systems rose to an altitude of 53,000 feet. That altitude was too great for the aircraft to have the capability to climb above the storms. Another weather-related phenomena which is under investigation as a potential cause is the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the ITCZ. Also known as the Intertropical Front, the Monsoon Trough, or the Equatorial Convergence Zone, it is a belt of low pressure around the equator. Wind changes or horizontal wind shear and clusters of thunderstorms in the zone can form tropical cyclones.
The investigation will also focus on lightning, the composite materials in the Airbus 330 plane, the fuel tank in the tail and the Airbus Fly By Wire system. These issues are all interrelated. Aircraft are struck by lightening once or twice a year on average. If they are metal, they provide conductive paths so that the lightning current remains on the outside of the plane. This is a very important element because lightening protection systems aim to eliminate gaps in the conductive paths (where the electrical current can enter the plane) and the arching at various attachment points in the plane. Both locations carry the risk of ignition of fuel vapors. Airplanes with a large amount of composite materials (rather than metal) have been suspected to be more vulnerable to lightning entering the aircraft rather than flowing around it. Entry of lightning into the aircraft can damage or destroy electronic systems and ignite fuel.
Recent Airworthiness Directives from the United States Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration relating to this aircraft warned about electrical problems and unsafe conditions presenting the potential for fuel tank ignition. A fly-by-wire plane such as the Airbus 330 is flown electronically, not mechanically. There is not a steering wheel to “steer” the aircraft. There is only a sidestick computerized aircraft controller.
Motley Rice will continue to provide updates on the investigation of the crash of Air France Flight 447 as they become available.
If you or someone you know is interested in seeking legal recourse due to wrongful death as a result of this accident, please contact Motley Rice aviation attorney and former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo (DC, MD, MO, SC) toll free at 1-800-868-6456 or mschiavo@motleyrice.com.
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Motley Rice attorneys have many years of experience representing victims of airline disasters and have aircraft pilots and mechanics on staff. We also have French, Portuguese and Spanish translators on staff. If you have any questions, comments or would like to explore your legal rights as a result of this air crash, click here. |
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CNN International
Mary Schiavo Says Recovery Efforts Key to Investigation of Air France Flight 447
June 6, 2009
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CNN with Campbell Brown
Aviation Attorney Mary Schiavo Discusses the Plane and Automated Warnings of Air France Flight 447
June 5, 2009
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CBS The Early Show
Aviation Attorney Mary Schiavo Discusses Possible Factors in the Crash of Air France Flight 447
June 3, 2009
Click here to see the video
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