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Lost: Mystery of Flight 447
Sunday May 29 at 8 & 11 pm ET on CBC News Network
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The disappearance of Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A-330, remains one of aviation's biggest mysteries.
In the early hours of 1st June 2009, the Airbus A-330, flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, disappeared over the Atlantic. Five days later shattered wreckage was discovered, with all 228 passengers and crew dead.
For two years, experts around the world have tried to figure out what went wrong. Now, the Passionate Eye asks, “How could a state-of-the-art airliner with elaborate electronic safety and navigation features and a faultless safety record simply fall out of the sky?
Lost: the Mystery of Flight 447 tries to explain what might have happened on that fateful night and asks some important questions about aircraft safety.
An independent team of seasoned pilots, engineers, and safety experts examine the evidence that emerged in the weeks following this horrific disaster and provide the first possible solutions to the mystery. Conducting their own tests and simulations using messages transmitted by the doomed plane's computer system, satellite weather images, and high end CGI, they painstakingly piece together a convincing scenario of what they believe happened.
Their scenario – in which pilots were scrambling to keep the plane aloft through bad weather and air speed sensor failure - has now been largely confirmed by an official report released on May 27th. French investigators said the report was based on a preliminary reading of data collected from the plane's black boxes.
The film raises questions about the degree of automation in modern aircraft and pilots' consequent ability to handle emergency situations. What led Flight 447's crew to fly straight into a towering thunderstorm? How could a plane carrying almost 250 people simply disappear in the age of radar and surveillance? How much control does a pilot really have over their aircraft?
Flight 447’s black boxes were discovered in early May using state-of-the art underwater robots and submarines. All of their data has been recovered and is still being analyzed. A final report is not expected until 2012.
Produced by award-wining UK company Darlow Smithson.
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