Plane ‘went nuts’ as Air France pilots pulled controls in opposite directions, inquiry finds

‘The captain held the column in a nose-down position while the co-pilot made nose-up inputs’

AIR France pilots who reported their plane “went nuts” during landing earlier this month simultaneously pulled the controls in opposite directions, investigators have found.

Flight 11 was on its final approach to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport with 177 passengers on board when the touchdown was aborted on April 5. On a cockpit recording, the captain and co-pilot can be heard battling with the Boeing 777’s controls while emergency alarms sound.

Alerting air traffic control to the crisis on board the transatlantic flight, one said: “The airplane is pretty much going nuts.” The controller responded: “I’ve seen on the radar, it swayed to the left.”

In a preliminary report released yesterday, France’s BEA air accident investigation agency said the two pilots “simultaneously made inputs on the controls” during a go-around for a second attempt.

The agency has classified the event as a “serious incident”, an industry term meaning it could have resulted in an accident. “The captain held the control column in a slightly nose-down position while the co-pilot made several, more pronounced, nose-up inputs,” the report said. A spokesman for Air France said: “Our crew are trained and regularly rehearse procedures that are practiced by all airlines.”

The Boeing 777 is equipped with control columns that move in tandem with each other to aid coordination. Experts say only one pilot is usually expected to be actively flying at a time.

However, if opposing forces on the two columns surpass a certain limit, they become “desynchronised”.

After the landing scare, the pilots analysed the situation but did not notice that they had made contradictory inputs nor that the columns had become decoupled, the BEA said.

The plane landed safely from New York on a second attempt and resumed service about two weeks later, according to Flightradar24.

Air France said it “regrets the discomfort felt by customers”.

About 20 per cent of air accidents take place on approach or landing, according to Airbus data.