Air France Landing Scare Prompts French Probe on Boeing 777 Flight

(Bloomberg) -- French air-safety officials launched an investigation into the cause of an Air France flight-control incident that led pilots of a Boeing Co. 777 to abort a landing at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. 

Air France Flight AF011 from New York landed safely on its second attempt Tuesday morning after pilots told air traffic-controllers the aircraft was unresponsive as it approached the runway the first time. 

Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, France’s air-crash authority, termed the incident “serious” and said on Twitter Wednesday that it is analyzing the flight data.

The BEA cited “instability of flight controls” in the final stages of the flight, as well as “hard controls” and “flight-path oscillations.”

The plane didn’t respond to commands and started to deviate to its left, AirLive.net reported. A recording published on the site chronicles fraught moments when pilots struggled with controls.

On the recording, one of the pilots can be heard groaning and breathing heavily as cockpit alarms ring. “Wait! Stop Stop!” he said, before adding “I’ll call you back! I’ll call you back!” 

A few moments later, a pilot said: “The airplane is pretty much going nuts.” The air traffic controller responded: “I’ve seen on the radar, it swayed to the left.”

After the first approach was aborted at about 1,200 feet of altitude, the plane was taken back up to a holding zone at 4,000 feet before it landed normally on the second try, it said.

“Air France understands and regrets the discomfort felt by customers,” the company said. The go-round procedure is used by all airlines “to guarantee the safety of flights and passengers, which is an absolute necessity for Air France.”

Boeing has been working to rebuild confidence in its safety culture following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving its cash-cow 737 Max jets. U.S. investigators are participating in a probe of a deadly China Eastern crash last month involving an earlier 737 model.

A spokeswoman for Boeing declined to comment.

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