An Air France Airbus A220-300, connecting Berlin to Paris, was forced to land at Frankfurt International Airport (Germany) this Tuesday, January 24 due to a technical problem, according to information from Le Parisien.
About an hour after takeoff, the captain announced to passengers on flight AF1435 that a right wing failure was forcing him to land in Frankfurt.
“It was only once on the ground that the pilot explained that this failure prevented the aircraft from turning correctly during the flight,” explains journalist Mathieu Coache, who was on board.
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Despite the announcement made in mid-flight, no panic was noted among the passengers.
“There was no panic around me.
The staff was particularly calm, as was the pilot’s voice,” says Matthieu Coache.
Upon landing, four fire engines, engines running, were waiting for the Airbus A220-300 in the event of a problem during landing, he says.
“The right aileron of our flight control was broken”
“In cruise, we had an alarm on an aileron, the right aileron of our flight control was broken,” the captain can be heard saying to passengers in an audio recording.
“We could not continue in these conditions,” he adds.
He then explains that the aileron "is a flight control which allows the plane to tilt from right to left", but that the plane was able to land thanks to the other ailerons and the spoilers present which made it possible to compensate for the loss. on the broken aileron.
Once on the ground in Frankfurt, the crew informed that no qualified technicians were available at Germany's largest airport and that the plane was therefore not repairable.
All passengers were disembarked and the company did its best to transfer its 130 passengers onto Air France flights and other companies this Tuesday.
For its part, Air France affirms that the crew made the decision to land in Frankfurt due to a technical incident.
“It's not a spoiler problem, it's a computer problem.
This is a computer problem which does not affect the airworthiness of the device,” assures the company.
She specifies that the “flight computer” which was broken makes it possible to control the flight controls, but that “the aircraft remained maneuverable” and landed “as a safety measure”.