So far, it's unclear who was controlling the Air France plane in its final minutes. Was it the experienced flight captain, Dubois, or one of his two first officers? Typically, a captain retreats to his cabin to rest a while after takeoff. Indeed, there's corroborative evidence to suggest that the captain was not sitting in the cockpit at the time of the crash: His body was recovered from the Atlantic, whereas those of his two copilots sank to the bottom of the ocean still attached to their seats. This would suggest that Dubois was not wearing a seatbelt.
-If things happened as it usually does with AF, it is not the Captain that would have been resting at that time of the flight, but one of the copilots. But as things stand,
we don't know what actually happened that day.
-It is standard practice in AF to wear a seat belt while in the crew rest area. The Captain might have decided not to wear one that day,
were he either in the crew rest or in his seat.
In contrast to many other airlines, it is standard practice at Air France for the less experienced of the two copilots to take the captain's seat when the latter is not there. The experienced copilot remains in his seat on the right-hand side of the cockpit. Under normal circumstances, that is not a problem, but in emergencies it can increase the likelihood of a crash.
As a consequence, it was probably the plane's third pilot, Pierre-Cedric Bonin, a dashing amateur yachtsman, who steered the aircraft to its doom.
-The fact that it is the less experienced of the two copilots that takes the Captain's left seat, does not mean he is the one in command. In AF, it is the pilot sitting on the right hand side (the most experienced) who has command whenever the Captain's not there. In the Captain's absence, the most experienced of the pilots will either move to the RHS if he was not sitting there already, or remain where he is if he's sitting in the RHS. This because it is assumed that a pilot trained to use the instruments from the RHS seat will be more efficient using the same in case of emergency.
This article, together with a number of theories about the accident, is based on assumptions flawed by a lack of knowledge of AF procedures.