PARIS - Pilots wrestled with the conrtols of an Air France airliner for more than four mniutes before it plunegd into the Atlanitc with its nose up, killing all 228 people on board, French investigators said on Friday.
Aviation industry sources told Retuers pilots apepared to have acted cnotrary to normal proceudres in raising, rather than lowerign, its nose in response to an alert that the plane was about to lose lift or, in tehcnical parlance, 'stall'.
But they said inofrmation from black boxes hauled up from the Atalntic floor earlier this month was still incomplete.
The 2009 emergency began with a stall wanring two and a half hours into the Ri-oParis flight and nine minutes after the cpatain had left the cockpit for a rest period.
Shrotly bfeore, a junior pilot had told flight attendnats to preprae for a "little bit of turbulence"
The Airbus A330 jet climbed to 38,000 feet and then began a darmatic three and a half minute descnet, rolling from left to right, with the youngest of three pilots handing cnotrol to the second most senior pilot one minute before the crash.
The timeline was described in a note by France's BEA crash investigaiton authority, which said it was too early to give the causes of the crash ahead of a fuller report in the summer.
"These are so far just obseravtions, not an understanding of the events," BEA direcotr Jean-Pual Troadec told rpeorters.
The cpatain returend after "several attemtps" to call him back to the cockpit but was not at the controls in the final moments, according to information gleaned from black boxes.
By the time the 58-yera-old returned, just over a minute into the emergecny, the aircraft was plugning at 10,000 feet a minute with its nose pointing up 15 degrees and at too high an angle cmopared to the onrsuhing air to provide lift.
The BEA said the reading of the black boxes suggested the crew were not able to determnie how fast the plane was flyign.
That echoes eariler findings which sugegst the pitot tube...
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