Air France Flight 212 (1968)
16°00′N 61°42′W / 16.0°N 61.7°W / 16.0; -61.7
Air France Flight 212 was a scheduled passenger flight from Santiago, Chile to Paris with scheduled stops at Lima, Quito, Bogotá, Caracas,Pointe-à-Pitre, Vila do Porto, and Lisbon.[1] On March 6, 1968, the Boeing 707 operating the flight, named "Chateau de Lavoute Polignac", crashed while approaching Le Raizet Airport in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, killing all 63 occupants of the plane.[1]
When air traffic control had cleared the flight deck crew for a visual approach to Le Raizet Airport's runway 11, the crew had reported the airfield in sight. Flight 212 started to descend from flight level 090 (approximately at 9,000 feet (2,700 m)) and passed over Saint-Claude, Guadeloupe at an altitude of about 4,400 feet (1,300 m). As the aircraft continued north-westerly, it crashed into the Grande Découverte mountain, 27.5 kilometres (17.1 mi) south-southwest of Le Raizet Airport and about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the main peak of La Grande Soufrière, at an altitude of 3,937 feet (1,200 m). The site is uphill from Saint-Claude and the Matouba hot springs.
The accident investigators cited the probable cause as a visual approach procedure at night in which the descent was begun from an incorrectly identified point. The aircraft had flown for 33 hours since coming off the Boeing production line, and was on her second revenue service (her maiden passenger flight was the previous day's outbound journey from Paris).[2]
The accident came six years after Air France Flight 117, another Boeing 707, crashed into a mountain further north on the same island while on approach to Point-à-Pitre's Le Raizet airport. Less than two years later, on 4 December 1969, Air France suffered another crash on the same leg of Flight 212 when the aircraft crashed shortly after take-off from Caracas.
References
- ^ a b "Air France 707 Wreckage Found, 63 Died". The Indianapolis Star. Associated Press. 7 March 1968. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Ranter, Harro. "Aircraft accident Boeing 707-328C F-BLCJ Pointe-à-Pitre". aviation-safety.net. Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
- Bibliography
- World Accident Summary. Civil Aviation Authority (United Kingdom). 1974. ISBN 0-903083-44-2.
- Il y a 44 ans, un Boeing s’écrasait en Guadeloupe
External links
- Final Accident Report posted at the BEA (France) (in French)
- v
- t
- e
1900
- Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier (June 1785)
- Sophie Blanchard (July 1819)
- Zénith (April 1875)
- Patrie (November 1907)
- La République (September 1909)
- Léon Delagrange (January 1910)
- Picardie mid-air collision (April 1922)
- Air Union Farman Goliath crash (May 1923)
- KLM Fokker F.III Forêt de Mormal crash (June 1925)
- America (July 1927)
- R101 (October 1930)
- Sabena DC-3 Crash (December 1949)
- Air India Flight 245 (November 1950)
- Tête de l'Obiou C-54 crash (November 1950)
- Air France SNCASE Languedoc crash (March 1952)
- Air France Flight 178 (September 1953)
- Hijacking of the FLN plane* (October 1956)
- Paris DC-6 crash (November 1956)
- TAI Flight 307 (September 1959)
- Air France Flight 406* (May 1961)
- Derby Aviation crash (October 1961)
- Air France Flight 007 (June 1962)
- Air France Flight 117 (June 1962)
- Malév Flight 355 (November 1962)
- Air Inter Flight 2611 (August 1963)
- Air India Flight 101 (January 1966)
- Air Ferry DC-4 accident (June 1967)
- Air France Flight 212 (March 1968)
- Air France Flight 1611 (September 1968)
- Pakistan International Airlines Flight 712 (December 1971)
- Air Inter Flight 696Y (October 1972)
- Nantes mid-air collision (March 1973)
- Paris Air Show Tu-144 crash (June 1973)
- Varig Flight 820 (July 1973)
- Pan Am Flight 816 (July 1973)
- Turkish Airlines Flight 981 (March 1974)
- TWA Flight 355 (September 1976)
- Aer Lingus Flight 164 (May 1981)
- Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308 (December 1981)
- Air Littoral Flight 1919 (December 1987)
- TAT Flight 230 (March 1988)
- Air France Flight 296Q (June 1988)
- Air Inter Flight 148 (January 1992)
- Trans-Air Service Flight 671 (March 1992)
- Lufthansa CityLine Flight 5634 (January 1993)
- Airbus Industrie Flight 129 (June 1994)
- Air France Flight 8969 (December 1994)
- Proteus Airlines Flight 706 (July 1998)
- Air France Flight 4590 (July 2000)
- Air Caraïbes Flight 1501 (March 2001)
- Brit Air Flight 5672 (June 2003)
- Air Moorea Flight 1121 (August 2007)
- XL Airways Germany Flight 888T (November 2008)
- Germanwings Flight 9525 (March 2015)
- Touques Airbus AS350B helicopter crash (March 2021)
* occurred in French Algeria, now an independent country