Air France Flight 117

Air France Flight 117

An Air France Boeing 707–320 similar to the crashed aircraft
Accident
Date	22 June 1962
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain
Site	Dos D'Ane, 25 km (15.5 mi) WNW of Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe 16.311°N 61.768°W / 16.311; -61.768
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 707–328
Aircraft name	Chateau de Chantilly
Operator	Air France
Registration	F-BHST
Flight origin	Paris, France
1st stopover	Lisbon, Portugal
2nd stopover	Santa Maria Island, Azores
3rd stopover	Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe
4th stopover	Caracas, Venezuela
Last stopover	Lima, Peru
Destination	Santiago, Chile
Passengers	103
Crew	10
Fatalities	113 (all)
Injuries	0
Survivors	0

Air France Flight 117 was a multi-leg international scheduled flight from Paris-Orly Airport via Lisbon, the Azores, Guadeloupe and Peru to Santiago, Chile, which crashed 22 June 1962. The Boeing 707–328 aircraft involved in the accident was just four months old.

The flight was uneventful until approaching Pointe-à-Pitre. The airport is surrounded by mountains and requires a steep descent. The weather was poor – violent thunderstorm and low cloud ceiling. The VOR navigational beacon was out of service. The crew reported themselves over the non-directional beacon (NDB) at 5,000 feet (1,524 m) and turned east to begin the final approach. Due to incorrect automatic direction finder (ADF) readings caused by the thunderstorm, the plane strayed 15 km (9.3 mi) west from the procedural let-down track. The plane crashed in a forest on a hill called Dos D'Ane ("The Donkey's Back"), at about 1,400 feet (427 m) and exploded. There were no survivors. Among the dead was French Guianan politician and war hero Justin Catayée and poet and black-consciousness activist Paul Niger.

The investigation could not determine the exact reason for the accident, but suspected the insufficient meteorological information given to the crew, failure of the ground equipment, and the atmospheric effects on the ADF indicator. After the crash Air France pilots criticized under-developed airports with facilities that were ill-equipped to handle jet aircraft, such as Guadeloupe's airport. This was the second accident in less than three weeks with an Air France Boeing 707 after the crash on 3 June 1962. Tex Johnston, Chief Test Pilot of Boeing Aircraft Co. wrote in his autobiography of events leading up to the crash. "Air France flight crews were habitually late (for crew training by Boeing), and on occasion the airplane not serviced". "After much extra, and in my mind, excessive flight training, the chief pilot failed to qualify." He informed the Air France Chief Executive in writing "I did not believe the captain capable of qualifying in the 707." Later "... an Air France instructor qualified the chief pilot. On his second trip as captain, he missed an inclement weather approach... and crashed into a mountain."

Some debris still remain at the site, where a memorial monument was placed in 2002 to mark the 40th anniversary of the crash. The road leading to the site is named Route du Boeing in memory of the crash.

Air France currently uses this flight number on a Shanghai–Pudong to Paris–Charles de Gaulle flight using a Boeing 777.

Sources

• Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
• An article about the crash
• Tex Johnston: Jet-Age Test Pilot by A.M. "Tex" Johnston with Charles Barton ISBN 978-1560989318