AVIATION/ BEA REPORTS ON AIR FRANCE FL2545

The French BEA has released its Final Report into a serious incident involving an AIR FRANCE A319 at Paris, France, on September 23, 2009. On that date, Flight 2545 was on International Service from Moscow, Russia, to Paris Charles de Gaulle, with 85 passengers and 6 crew members onboard. The A319 was performing an ILS approach to runway 27R in fog, visibility of 3000 meters below scattered cloud ceiling 200 feet and broken cloud ceiling of 300 feet. Autopilot was disengaged and the Captain was Pilot flying. Descending thru 2170 feet, the gear was selected down and full flaps deployed. Descending thru 400 feet AGL, airspeed was 132KIAS and pitch angle was 0.7 nose up. At 200 feet AGL, which was decision height, the Captain did not see the runway and decided to go around. According to the BEA report, it was at this point that the A319, registration F-GRHU and pictured above, nearly crashed. Multiple problems occurred, including the aircraft pitching up and down and continuing to descend with ever increasing speed. The maximum flaps speed was exceeded during the event. The crew eventually was able to regain control on the aircraft and land without incident on their 2nd approach. The BEA blamed the incident on multiple Pilot Errors. The full report, which includes a detailed report on events as they unfolded and the crew's response, can be found on the BEA website.