Paris – Rio de Janeiro – Buenos Aires – Santiago de Chile

On December 2, 1985 at 06:34 AM, Paris – Rio de Janeiro – Buenos Aires – Santiago de Chile experienced a crash involving Boeing 747-200, operated by Air France, with the event recorded near Rio de Janeiro-Galeão Rio de Janeiro.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was landing (descent or approach) at a airport (less than 10 km from airport) crash site.

282 people were known to be on board, 0 fatalities were recorded, 282 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 0.0%.

Crew on board: 17, crew fatalities: 0, passengers on board: 265, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. Air France flight 091 was involved in runway excursion accident at Rio de Janeiro-Galeão International Airport, Brazil. The aircraft, a Boeing 747-200, took off from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, France at 21:30 UTC on a flight to Santiago, Chile with en route stops at Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The flight to Rio de Janeiro took about eleven hours and was uneventful. At 08:34 UTC the aircraft touched down on runway 14, 400 meters from the threshold. After reversers were set, the aircraft deviated from the runway heading and at 2,000 meters from the threshold it veered off the right side of the runway. The aircraft ran over the grass for 765 meters, until passing over a drainage ditch and the load apron concrete step, where the landing gears folded aft with the left wing gear completely separating. On the load apron concrete the aircraft spun around for 275 meters until stopping, after the left outboard wing section struck an illumination stand. For a few seconds engines 2, 3 and 4 kept running at maximum reverse thrust, while engine number one run operated at full forward thrust. After the engines were shut down, the passengers evacuated using three of the aircraft's left hand side escape slides. The fire that started on the area near engines number 2 and 3 was extinguished by the airport fire fighters. It appeared that the n°1 engine throttle cable had broken, making it impossible for the flight crew to control engine power. The engine had accelerated to an unusually high level of (forward) thrust (above takeoff power).

Aircraft reference details include registration F-GCBC, MSN 22427, year of manufacture 1980.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately -22.8112°, -43.2586°.