‘Stop! Stop!’

Air France Pilots Briefly Lost Control of Boeing 777 in ‘Technical Incident’

Cockpit recordings show the pilots of AF11 from New York to Paris struggled to control the aircraft on its first approach.

Pilots aboard an Air France Boeing 777 on a flight from New York to Paris had to abort their landing and perform a go-around after struggling to control the aircraft on the initial approach. Flight AF11 from JFK started to drift to the left as it was about to land at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Tuesday morning. Cockpit recordings published by the aviation news site AirLive.net suggest the pilots were struggling with the controls, with one shouting “Stop! Stop!” Before coming in for the second attempt, which was successful, the pilot explained that there had been a problem with the flight controls. “The aircraft did pretty much any old thing,” he told the control tower. Air France confirmed that there had been a “technical incident.” “The crew mastered the situation and landed the aircraft normally after a second approach,” the company said in a statement.