Air France Flight 030 Timeline

On August 17, 1970, Air France Flight 030 departed from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport at 1820 with a final destination of Orly Airport, Paris, France (Aircraft incident report, 1970). Flight 030 performed a scheduled stop in Montreal, P.Q., Canada. Upon departure of Montreal at 2226, flight 030 had no issues to report; however, at 2235 flight 030 experienced a number three engine malfunction, which had a fire warning associated with it, at 5,600 feet Mean Sea Level (MSL) (Aircraft incident report, 1970). The flight crew discharged the fire extinguishing agent while simultaneously shutting down the number three engine, then flight 030 was immediately diverted to John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, where the aircraft landed safely at 0004 on August 18 (Aircraft incident report, 1970).
Flight Crew
The crew of flight 030 consisted of Captain Jacques Mims, first officer Louis Chauveau, and Rene Cobut, who was the flight engineer (Aircraft incident report, 1970). On the day of the accident all of these crew members possessed the appropriate aeronautical certificates to operate the aircraft and the routes flown on that day (Aircraft incident report, 1970).
Inflight Operations …show more content…
Jean, Quebec, when the crew heard an explosive sound that was followed by the number three engine fire warning system activating, which caused the crew to perform emergency engine shutdown procedures along with deployment of the engine fire extinguishing system (Aircraft incident report, 1970). One of the cabin attendants reported seeing fire around the number three engine pylon area. Additionally, the flight engineer attempted to look out of the flight deck window to assess the damage in flight, but due to the darkness and the damage being on the outboard side of the engine, he couldn’t assess the amount of damage to the engine (Aircraft incident report,