Families await news on airbus

The families of the five New Zealanders who died when an Air New Zealand Airbus A320 crashed off the coast of France a year ago are still waiting to find out what went wrong.

Pilots, too, are anxiously waiting for answers as to why the Airbus, flown by two German pilots but with New Zealand crew on board, stalled three times, then reared up to 57 degrees before plunging almost vertically into the sea as the pilots wrestled for control.

Some New Zealand pilots are concerned that a major systems failure occurred and want to know if two faulty angle-of-attack sensors on the outside of the plane provided incorrect data to the plane's fly-by-wire system.

French investigators from the Paris-based Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) are yet to release the final report that will detail the cause and determine who, if anyone, will face criminal charges.

The president of the New Zealand Air Line Pilots Association, Mark Rammell, an A320 captain, said most in the industry accepted that accident reports took time.

After meeting BEA director Paul-Louis Arslanian in Paris earlier this year, Rammell said he was convinced "he wants to get it right".

This week the families of the New Zealanders who died in the Airbus crash near Perpignan will meet again on the beach at Canet-en-Roussillon near Perpignan to unveil a marble and greenstone plaque.

The Herald on Sunday understands the New Zealand Air Line Pilots' Association has donated $30,000 to the Perpignan Trust fund set up for the benefit of the four Air NZ employees' children.