Air France Flight 212 (1968)

16°00′N 61°42′W / 16.0°N 61.7°W / 16.0; -61.7AircraftAircraft typeBoeing 707-328CAircraft nameChâteau de Lavoûte-PolignacOperatorAir FranceRegistrationF-BLCJFlight originArturo Merino Benítez International Airport, Santiago, Chile1st stopoverJorge Chávez International Airport, Lima, Peru2nd stopoverMariscal Sucre International Airport, Quito, Ecuador3rd stopoverEl Dorado International Airport, Bogotá, Colombia4th stopoverSimón Bolívar International Airport, Caracas, Venezuela5th stopoverPointe-à-Pitre International Airport, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe6th stopoverSanta Maria Airport, Santa Maria, AzoresLast stopoverLisbon Airport, Lisbon, PortugalDestinationOrly Airport, Paris, FrancePassengers52Crew11Fatalities63Survivors0

Air France Flight 212 was a scheduled passenger flight from Santiago, Chile to Paris with scheduled stops at Lima, Quito, Bogotá, Caracas,Pointe-à-Pitre, Vila do Porto, and Lisbon.^[1] On March 6, 1968, the Boeing 707 operating the flight, named "Chateau de Lavoute Polignac", crashed while approaching Le Raizet Airport in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, killing all 63 occupants of the plane.^[1]

When air traffic control had cleared the flight deck crew for a visual approach to Le Raizet Airport's runway 11, the crew had reported the airfield in sight. Flight 212 started to descend from flight level 090 (approximately at 9,000 feet (2,700 m)) and passed over Saint-Claude, Guadeloupe at an altitude of about 4,400 feet (1,300 m). As the aircraft continued north-westerly, it crashed into the Grande Découverte mountain, 27.5 kilometres (17.1 mi) south-southwest of Le Raizet Airport and about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the main peak of La Grande Soufrière, at an altitude of 3,937 feet (1,200 m). The site is uphill from Saint-Claude and the Matouba hot springs.

The accident investigators cited the probable cause as a visual approach procedure at night in which the descent was begun from an incorrectly identified point. The aircraft had flown for 33 hours since coming off the Boeing production line, and was on her second revenue service (her maiden passenger flight was the previous day's outbound journey from Paris).^[2]

The accident came six years after Air France Flight 117, another Boeing 707, crashed into a mountain further north on the same island while on approach to Point-à-Pitre's Le Raizet airport. Less than two years later, on 4 December 1969, Air France suffered another crash on the same leg of Flight 212 when the aircraft crashed shortly after take-off from Caracas.

Bibliography

• Il y a 44 ans, un Boeing s’écrasait en Guadeloupe

• Final Accident Report posted at the BEA (France) (in French)