Aviation safety: The BEA criticizes Air France for non-compliance with protocols during in-flight incidents
A report from the Bureau of Investigations and Analysis asks the company to "put compliance with procedures back at the center of the company's safety culture".
Air France is currently going through a zone of turbulence. The French authority responsible for investigating aircraft accidents published a harsh report on Tuesday in which it highlights the recurrence of incidents in which safety rules were ignored by airline crews.
BEA criticizes Air France
This report by the Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses (BEA) is concerned about "a certain culture installed among some Air France crews that promotes a propensity to underestimate the contribution of strict application of procedures for safety" and calls on the company to "put compliance with procedures at the center of the company's safety culture".
The BEA relies in particular on an incident that occurred on December 31, 2020 during a flight between Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo, and Paris aboard 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. This cut-off was also "deliberately omitted by the crew", observes the report. "This decision thus created a significant fire risk and led to a significant decrease in the safety margin of the flight, the fire having been avoided by chance".
BEA criticizes Air France report
If the report highlights the "extremely limited" number of Air France flights giving rise to investigations, the BEA says it has observed "through a number of recent investigations (...) that the crews concerned had been able (...) to free themselves from carrying out certain procedures in a compliant manner". The organization cites, for example, a double incident on March 28 and 30, 2017 during which the same crew made a too fast ascent in flight. Another fact: on September 12, 2020, an Airbus A318 "freed itself from operational procedures in order to achieve a quick arrival on the runway at Paris-Orly". "During the final approach, the crew had very few resources to deal with a possible unforeseen event".
BEA criticizes Air France fact
The Bureau of investigation also questions certain phrases appearing in the Air France pilots' operating manual, such as: "knows how to deviate from procedures in consultation with the crew when safety requires it" or "improvises in the face of the unpredictable to obtain the safest result". The BEA considers that Air France should rather "put compliance with procedures at the center of the company's safety culture".
Air France, for its part, assures to take into account all the recommendations of the report, specifying that some were already implemented. For example, the company is committed to "providing pilots with tools that allow them to replay and analyze their flights", as recommended by the BEA. Air France further states that an audit will be undertaken within a few months "within the entire company" in order to "complete, if necessary, certain analyses of this report".
