The report is harsh. The Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), the French authority responsible for investigating aircraft accidents, underlines in a report published on Tuesday the recurrence of incidents during which the safety rules were ignored by crews from Air France. This report is concerned about “a certain culture established among some Air France crews which favors a tendency to underestimate the contribution of a strict application of procedures for safety” and calls on the French airline to “return compliance with procedures at the center of the company’s safety culture”.
The BEA relies on an incident that occurred on December 31, 2020 during a flight between Brazzaville (Congo) and Paris on board an Airbus A330. A fuel leak detected at cruising altitude led the crew to divert to N’Djamena airport (Chad) but without observing the “Fuel Leak” safety procedure which provides for the engine to be cut off on the side of the leak .
“The engine shutdown (…) was deliberately omitted by the crew,” observes the report. “This decision thus created a significant risk of fire and led to a significant reduction in the safety margin of the flight, the fire having been avoided by chance”, continues the BEA.
An audit in a few months
While the organization emphasizes the “extremely limited” number of Air France flights giving rise to investigations, it says it has observed “through a certain number of recent investigations (…) that the crews concerned had been able (…) free to carry out certain procedures in a compliant manner”. The BEA cites, for example, a double incident on March 28 and 30, 2017 during which the same crew climbed too quickly in flight.
On September 12, 2020, an Airbus A318 “exempted operational procedures in order to achieve a rapid arrival on the runway at Paris-Orly”. “During the final approach, the crew had very few resources to deal with a possible unforeseen event”, insists the BEA.
The investigation office wonders about certain sentences appearing in the Air France pilots’ operations manual such as: “knows how to deviate from the procedures in consultation with the crew when safety requires it” or “improvises in the face of ‘unpredictable to obtain the safest result’. “The BEA considers that Air France should put respect for procedures back at the center of the company’s safety culture,” advises the investigation office.
Air France assured that it had taken into account all the recommendations of the report, specifying that some had already been implemented. The company undertakes, for example, to “provide pilots with tools allowing them to replay and analyze their flights”, as recommended by the BEA. Air France also states that an audit will be initiated within a few months “within the whole of the company” in order to “complete, if necessary, certain analyzes of this report”.