Fort-de-France – Port-Etienne – Paris

On August 1, 1948 at 11:55 PM, Fort-de-France – Port-Etienne – Paris experienced a crash involving Latécoère 631, operated by Air France, with the event recorded near Atlantic Ocean All World.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was flight at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

52 people were known to be on board, 52 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 11, crew fatalities: 11, passengers on board: 41, passenger fatalities: 41, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. The crew was performing a flight from Fort-de-France, Martinique, to Paris, with an intermediate stop in Port-Etienne, Mauritania. While cruising by night over the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,920 km from Port-Etienne (now Nouadhibou), the aircraft crashed into the ocean in unknown circumstances at 2355LT. No message was sent by the crew. SAR operations were jointly conducted by several countries and few debris were found by the crew of USS Campbell three days later, on August 4. Unfortunately, none of the 52 occupants survived the crash of this six-engine aircraft christened 'Henri Guillaumet'. Crew: Corentin Kersual, pilot, Jean Goutay, copilot, Henri Gloux, radio navigator, Gontran Ronat, radio navigator, Henri Cabanes, navigator, Gaston Le Morvan, mechanic, Jean Coustaline, mechanic, Alfred Jaggi, mechanic, Mr. Arbelot, mechanic, Mr. Sgourdeos, steward, Mr. Meunier, steward.

Aircraft reference details include registration F-BDRC, MSN 06, year of manufacture 1947.