Air France Flight 212 (1968)

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's South America route.

Air France Flight 212

A similar aircraft registered F-BLCK
Occurrence
Date	5 March 1968 (1968-03-05)
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain
Site	La Grande Soufrière, Guadeloupe 16.0°N 61.7°W / 16.0; -61.7
Aircraft type	Boeing 707-328C
Operator	Air France
Registration	F-BLCJ
Flight origin	Santiago de Chile
1st stopover	Lima
2nd stopover	Quito
3rd stopover	Bogotá
4th stopover	Caracas
5th stopover	Pointe-à-Pitre
6th stopover	Santa Maria Island
Last stopover	Lisbon
Destination	Paris
Passengers	52
Crew	11
Fatalities	63
Survivors	0

When air traffic control 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 90 and passed over Saint-Claude, Guadeloupe at an altitude of about 4,400 feet (1,300 m). As the aircraft continued north-westerly, it crashed into the Grande Découverte mountain, 27.5 km south-southwest of Le Raizet Airport and about 5 km from the main peak of La Grande Soufrière, at an altitude of 3,937 feet. 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).[1]

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.