Air France flight 447

Stewarts Law, together with its expert Captain John Mahon, a training captain and experienced pilot on Airbus and Boeing aircraft, have been conducting an independent technical investigation into the causes of the Air France Flight 447 crash. Their technical research, including recreation of the known facts in an A330 simulator, points to AF447 being a preventable accident. Four errors in the chain of events have been identified that lead to what appears to be a loss of control of the aircraft. Those errors are:

(1) Flight into bad weather;
(2) Faulty pitot tubes;
(3) Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) Failure;
(4) Flight deck response to the accumulation of (1) - (3).

Stewarts Law gave a technical presentation in Paris last month to many of the families they are assisting and highlighted their view that AF447 could have been prevented if the right steps had been taken.

The BEA (Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses - the French accident investigators), Air France and Airbus are saying very little but since this loss Air France have ordered special crew training for high altitude system failures of the kind experienced by the crew of AF447.

The black boxes have still not been found.

There is a separate judicial investigation underway and it is expected that Air France and Airbus will be asked why no action had been taken to replace faulty pitot tubes on the A330 series.

Stewarts Law is helping more than 50 families in 15 countries. The families of AF447 want answers. They want to know what caused the accident and, because of outdated laws, they are barred from the official investigation. The technical investigation conducted by Stewarts Law provides those families with a forum to understand some of the potential causes and discuss them with independent experts.

At a press conference in Paris on 23 September 2009, James Healy-Pratt of Stewarts Law called upon the insurers of Airbus and Air France to put €1 billion euro into a trust fund for all the families, to be distributed evenly. The insurers do not want the families to know that Brazilian cases are potentially worth more than French cases. Stewarts Law stated that a family's nationality should not determine their worth for indemnification purposes.

The insurers want to settle claims cheaply, quickly and quietly. Doing this, leaves the families with no voice. The families represented by Stewarts Law are determined to hold the responsible parties to account in the courts of their choice.

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