Relatives off to France for air-crash memorial

The French memorial to the five New Zealanders and two Germans who died when the Air NZ Airbus plunged into the sea. Photo / Ville de Canet-en-Roussillon

PARIS - Relatives of the men killed in the crash of the Air New Zealand Airbus head to France next week, seeking solace close to the site where their loved ones died a year ago.

They will arrive in Canet-en-Roussillon, a seaside town on the Mediterranean coast, and meet the coastguard, gendarmes and police who responded to the emergency call when the A320 crashed into the sea.

Next Saturday morning (NZ time), they will be received by local mayor Arlette Franco, who will unveil a plaque to the memory of the five New Zealanders and two Germans killed.

The airliner crashed almost vertically into the sea on November 27 last year while on a test flight before a charter company, XL Airways Germany, was due to hand it back to Air New Zealand at the end of a lease contract.

The twinjet soared into the sky and then just as swiftly plunged to its doom just 7km from the shore, shocking families, strollers and joggers on Canet's beachfront that afternoon, said Mayor Franco. Since then, the town had been enormously touched by the gratitude expressed by the bereaved.

"Tragically, we can never restore these lost souls to the heart of their families, but the citizens of Canet-en-Roussillon are bound forever to these New Zealanders, who will always be welcome here," she told the Weekend Herald.

"Canet-en-Roussillon is now closer than ever to New Zealand, and these bonds, these bonds of the heart, can never be undone."

The cause of the crash is being probed by two panels - one by France's air safety investigation board and the other by judicial investigators.

According to a lawyer who is close to the case, the final report by the board will be completed "imminently", although three months will elapse before it is published, giving time for interested parties to view it.

The judicial report will be published "by year's end, or early next year", said Jean-Pierre Dreno, the state prosecutor in Perpignan.

In its interim report in February, the board described the critical moments when the plane, flown by the two Germans but under the instructions of an Air New Zealand pilot, began a test to assess its recovery from low speed, at an altitude of 3000 feet (925m).

As the speed fell swiftly from 136 knots (238km/h) to 99 knots (173 km/h), the aircraft pitched and rolled violently while an automatic stall warning sounded.

Just 96 seconds from the test's start, despite frantic efforts by the German pilot to regain control, the Airbus smashed nose-first into the sea at an angle of 14 degrees at 263 knots (486km/h).

Inquiries have also looked at the possibility that sensors on the outside of the plane may have failed to provide accurate data to the A320's computerised "fly-by-wire" system.

Even so, "in a test flight, pilots should be aware that things might not work properly", an aviation expert involved in the inquiry said.

"Doing stalls at low altitude like that is not something that is normally conducted. Usually, you give yourself plenty of altitude to recover if there is a problem, and they did not."

Airbus has already issued safety recommendations to its 218 customers, warning them to checkthat the external sensors are not obscured by spray-painting and reminding them that low-speed manoeuvres should not be conducted at low altitude.

One early theory was that the sensors had been obscured during respraying just before handover.

EAS Industries, the company which carried out the plane's refurbishment, has refused to comment on the allegations, but the firm's managing director, Mair Levy, said last week that he was confident of the outcome of the investigation.