A few days ago, the pilot of an Air France 777 had to abort take-off at the last moment from Lagos because of a lack of power. Fortunately, the aircraft was able to stop in time and passengers disembarked without using the chutes. There was no great mystery about what had caused the problem – it seems both pilots simply forgot to arm the auto-thrust selector. Boeing have accepted that their instructions might need improving because there have been seven other reported incidents of this happening. Nonetheless, forgetting a fairly obvious part of the pre-departure procedure is, to say the least, unfortunate. Nor is this the first time it has happened with Air France – a 747 crew made the same mistake with an aircraft in Tahiti.
To its credit, Air France has already accepted that its safety record is not as good as it should be and has employed Delta to perform a full audit on the airline. Of course, the actual record of an airline only shows incidents where aircraft have been badly damaged or people injured. Incidents such as the two above, lurk under the statistics and often go unreported – even though they could very nearly have been very serious accidents.
The Air France pilots’ union was furious with the company last year when they suggested that the pilots should pay more attention to in-house operational instructions. This incident is yet further indication that the airline might have a point.
It is time that Air France buried the “Air Chance” nick-name and it seems that the pilots might have to climb off their collective high horse if the airline’s reputation is to be improved.
