Air France Crash Investigation Finds Pilot Error and Faulty Equipment

The jet crashed in 2009. Here's the story at the Los Angeles Times, "Probe of Air France crash in Atlantic blames pilots, training":

The investigation of the 2009 crash of an Air France jet into the Atlantic Ocean concludes that the cockpit crew took the wrong steps to correct a high-altitude stall and blamed the errors on poor training of those piloting today's highly automated aircraft.

In its final report issued Thursday, the French civil aviation authority's Bureau of Surveys and Analysis said its review of flight data recorders recovered almost two years after the crash disclosed that the two junior pilots at the controls of AF 447 were "completely surprised" by the failure of cockpit instruments to guide them out of the disaster.

All 228 passengers and crew on board died in the June 1, 2009, crash of the jet en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The Airbus A330-203, built by a European consortium that includes the French government, suffered a rare cruising-altitude loss of power while the flight captain was outside the cockpit on a scheduled break, the French investigative agency reported.

It said the two copilots, both in their 30s, didn't know what to do when ice accumulation caused the aircraft's autopilot to disconnect, and that they took the opposite action from what was needed, which was nosing the plane down to recover lift.

RTWT.

Also at CSM, "Lessons from Air France Flight 447 Rio-to-Paris crash."