For what its worth, latest thoughts. Condolences to all involved.
A sudden illness of the captain is emerging as one of the prime possible causes of yesterday’s crash of a Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ-100) at Brest in France.
The 53 year-old commander was the only person who died in the accident and there is reported evidence that he may have collapsed in the cockpit before the impact.
The Brest public prosecutor, Francois Nicot, told French media at the scene that the co-pilot has now said that the captain “had a problem” and that he “collapsed on the controls”. Yesterday the co-pilot was reported by a passenger to have repeatedly said immediately after the accident: “I told him to go around.”
An autopsy on the highly experienced captain, who had 16,000hr total time and 5,300 on-type, is to be held shortly.
Nicot says the possibility of the captain having collapsed remains to be proved, but says he considers it a “serious” one.
The aircraft was landing on runway 26 at Brest-Guipavas airport shortly after midnight in conditions of poor visibility and with broken cloud as low as 200ft (65m), but with light winds. The head of the western region of France’s DGAC described the conditions as “not exceptional for Brest”.
The runway has a Category III instrument landing system and precision approach path indicator (PAPI) lights. It has not been definitively confirmed that they were in use, but there is no suggestion that they were not.
The aircraft hit the ground, landing-gear extended, just over 1nm (2km) from the threshold, broke up due to impact with surface obstacles and caught fire. The 24 passengers escaped through a door which had apparently been torn open.