Two Air France pilots asleep before crash which killed 228 as one woke to say '**** we're dead'

Horrific final details of the final minutes of the doomed jumbo were revealed before it plunged into the sea off Brazil

Two out of three Air France pilots were sleeping minutes before one shouted 'F***: we're dead!' and their plane plunged into the sea with the loss of all 228 people on board.

Horrific details of the last moments of Flight 447, which claimed the lives of five Britons and three Irish doctors, have emerged in a disturbing new investigation into the 2009 disaster involving an Airbus 330.

Published in the October edition of Vanity Fair magazine, it raises terrifying questions about safety aboard civilian passenger jets, and the 'culture' of the Air France pilots on board.

Excerpts from recorded conversations between 37-year-old David Robert, Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, and Marc Dubois, the 58-year-old captain of the plane, reveal that two of them were asleep when the plane got into difficulty in a tropical storm.

Referring to Bonin, a 'Company Baby' on the Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight, the piece reads: 'With most of the weather still lying ahead and an anxious junior pilot at the controls, Dubois decided it was time to get some sleep.'

Chief investigator Alain Bouillard is quoted as saying: 'If the captain had stayed in position through the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, it would have delayed his sleep by no more than 15 minutes, and because of his experience, maybe the story would have ended differently.

Read more here:  http://www.mirror.co.uk

NTSB Identification: DCA09RA052 
Accident occurred Monday, June 01, 2009 in Atlantic, France
Aircraft: AIRBUS A330, registration:
Injuries: 228 Fatal.

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. The foreign authority was the source of this information.

At approximately 0220 UTC Air France flight 447, an Airbus A330, registration F-GZCP, en route from Rio de Janerio, Brazil to Paris, France lost contact with ATC over the Atlantic Ocean. Automatic maintenance messages were recieved, and some wreckage has been recovered. Strong convective weather was in the vicinity. The investigation is being led by the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) The US NTSB is participating as the State of Manufacture of the General Electric engines.

For information see http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/vol.af.447.php