French pilots yesterday suspended co-operation with an inquiry into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet in a dispute over the causes of the disaster.
Three young Irish doctors were among the 228 passengers and crew killed when Air France flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic on June 1st, 2009.
The SNPL airline pilots' union declared the boycott after it emerged that crash investigators had removed a recommendation about one of the Airbus A330's systems from an interim report last week, focusing instead on possible pilot error.
The government's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) acknowledged the move but retaliated over claims the decision had cast doubt over its independence. It said it had not abandoned the idea of making a recommendation on the A330 cockpit alarms but that the issue needed more work.
Meanwhile in an unusual statement, it stated even more clearly the main question hanging over the pilots. "The stall alarm rang out uninterruptedly for 54 seconds from the time the stall started without provoking an appropriate response from the crew," the agency said.
The BEA said last week that crew had failed to respond to repeated stall warnings and listed a series of actions that experts said went against the handbook.
Its 10 recommendations included better training for pilots to fly aircraft manually, particularly at high altitudes.
The ongoing inquiry into what caused flight AF447 from Rio to Paris to crash into the Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board, has pitched France's flagship carrier and its pilots against planemaker Airbus and crash investigators.
The outcome may have legal implications for dozens of potential compensation claims on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Why ignore in the official report the recommendation on the stall alarm? Were other significant modifications made to the report?" the SNPL said in a statement, noting that the BEA's reputation had been "seriously shaken".
An association for victims' families said the BEA's actions had undermined the credibility of the investigation.
Despite posing questions over crew actions, the BEA has said it is still too early to say exactly why the A330 crashed, though its specialists have more or less pieced together how.
The autopilot switched off after the aircraft's speed sensors became blocked with ice at night and high altitude. Under manual control, the A330 rose sharply, lost speed and entered a stall, plunging from 38,000 feet with alarms sounding.
The BEA said last week the Air France pilots had not been trained to deal with the loss of reliable speed data at high altitude.
Rescue workers recovered 50 bodies in the days immediately after the crash, and a further 104 in recent weeks. More than 70 could not be retrieved over the two years of searching.
The body of one of the Irish victims, Jane Deasy, a 27-year-old doctor from Rathgar in Dublin, was recovered during the original search operation. Dr Aisling Butler (26), of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and Dr Eithne Walls (28), from Ballygowan, Co Down, also died in the crash.
Reuters