Air France Flight 212 was a Boeing 707-328C, registration F-BLCJ, that crashed into the northwestern slope of La Soufrière Mountain, in Guadeloupe on 6 March 1968, with the loss of all 63 lives on board. The aircraft, named "Chateau de Lavoute Polignac", was operating the Caracas– Pointe-à-Pitre sector of

Air France Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global a ...

's South America route. When

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

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 In aviation and aviation meteorology, a flight level (FL) is an aircraft's altitude at standard air pressure, expressed in hundreds of feet. The air pressure is computed assuming an International Standard Atmosphere pressure of 1013.25 hPa ...

090 (approximately at ) and passed over

Saint-Claude, Guadeloupe Saint-Claude is a commune in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe. It lies in the interior of southern Basse-Terre Island, just northeast of the capital city of Basse-Terre. Population Education Public preschools and primary schools i ...

at an altitude of about . As the aircraft continued north-westerly, it crashed into the Grande Découverte mountain, south-southwest of Le Raizet Airport and about from the main peak of La Grande Soufrière, at an altitude of . 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). 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.

References

;Bibliography *
Il y a 44 ans, un Boeing s’écrasait en Guadeloupe

External links

Final Accident Report
posted at the BEA (France) * () Aviation accidents and incidents in 1968 Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 707

212 Year 212 ( CCXII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Asper and Camilius (or, less frequently, year 965 '' Ab urbe condit ...

Aviation accidents and incidents in Guadeloupe 1968 in Guadeloupe March 1968 events in North America {{aviation-accident-stub