"'Damn it, we're going to crash" Terrified final words of pilot on doomed Air France jet

Flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went down in Atlantic Ocean with loss of 228 lives

In a scandal which is set to shock all those who work or travel on commercial flights, they reveal absolute panic and ignorance among those in charge of the aircraft.
The exchange is from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) on Flight 447, which went down in a tropical storm with the loss of 228 lives while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009.

Wreckage: Brazil Navy sailors recover debris from Air France flight 447. A new book on the crash has revealed pilots panicked as the plane lost altitude

Doomed: Flight captain Marc Dubois, left, was not in the cockpit when the plane stalled. Right, Pierre-Cedric Bonin said he had lost control of the aircraft

'Damn it! We're going to crash. It can't be true,' says one of the pilots.
'But, what's happening?' another replies, seconds before the Airbus 330 plunged into the water, killing everyone on board including five Britons and three Irish doctors.
Until now only selected excerpts from the conversation between David Robert, 37, Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, and Marc Dubois, 58, the captain of the plane, have been released.
Air accident investigators kept the rest hidden, saying they did not want to upset families of the pilots lost in the worst crash in the company's history.
But now Jean-Pierre Otelli, a veteran French flying instructor, has written a book in which he lays the dramatic moments bare.
Rio-Paris Crash: A Collection of Pilot Errors describes how the men failed to deal with a loss of lift.
Mr Dubois, who had 11,000 flying hours behind him, was on a routine break when it happened, leaving his two subordinates in charge.
'So, is he coming?' Mr Robert is heard muttering, even swearing in frustration when Mr Dubois takes a full minute to get back to the cockpit.
'Hey, what are you...' Mr Dubois is heard to say when he gets back, to which Mr Robert replies: 'What's happening? I don't know, I don't know what's happening.'
Instead of lowering the plane's nose to deal with the stall - as they should have done according to normal procedures - they raised it.
Mr Bonin is heard saying: 'I've got a problem I don't have vertical speed.
I don't have any indication,' before his captain replies: 'I don't know, but right now we're descending.'
Air France argues that the pilots were baffled by numerous confusing signals from the Airbus, while the plane manufacturer insists that it was responding properly.
As the plane approaches the sea, the crew began conversing in short, panicked questions.
'What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?' said Mr Robert, while the plane rocked from side-to-side.
'I don't have control of the plane, I don't have control of the plane at all,' Mr Bonin replied, as a stall alarm resounded for the sixth time in two minutes.
According to an official report released earlier this year, the last words were from Captain Dubois who said: 'Ten degrees pitch.'
But in his new book Mr Otellis asks who will be held responsible 'for this mess'.

Inexperience? One of the plane's flight data recorders on the ocean bed. Recordings made in the cockpit have revealed the two co-pilots were too panicked to tell the captain what was happening

Disaster: The aircraft was in an aerodynamic stall, but the pilots failed to push the nose down to correct it

'It is a training problem, fatigue, lack of sleep, or is it due to the fact the pilots are confident than an Airbus can make up for all errors?,' he writes.
France's air accident investigation unit, the BEA, reacted angrily to the publication of the book, with a spokesman saying printing the conversation showed a 'lack of respect to the memory of the crew who died'.
Air France has denied that its pilots were incompetent, but has since improved training, concentrating on how to fly a plane manually when there is a stall.
Both Air France and Airbus are facing manslaughter charges, with a judicial investigation led by Paris judges already under way.
A judge has already ordered Air France to pay some £120,000 in compensation to the families of each victim, but this is just a provisional figure which is likely to multiply many times over

THE FINAL MOMENTS

Marc Dubois (captain): 'Get your wings horizontal.'
David Robert (pilot): 'Level your wings.'
Pierre-Cedric Bonin (pilot): 'That's what I'm trying to do... What the... how is it we are going down like this?'
Robert: 'See what you can do with the commands up there, the primaries and so on…Climb climb, climb, climb.'
Bonin: 'But I have been pulling back on the stick all the way for a while.'
Dubois: 'No, no, no, don't climb.'
Robert: 'Ok give me control, give me control.'
Dubois: 'Watch out you are pulling up.'
Robert: 'Am I?'
Bonin: 'Well you should, we are at 4,000.'
As they approach the water, the on-board computer is heard to announce: 'Sink rate. Pull up, pull up, pull up.'
To which Captain Dubois reacts with the words: 'Go on: pull.'
Bonin: 'We're pulling, pulling, pulling, pulling.'
The crew never discuss the possibility that they are about to crash, instead concentrating on trying to right the plane throughout the final four minutes.
Dubois: 'Ten degrees pitch.'
Robert: 'Go back up!…Go back up!…Go back up!… Go back up!'
Bonin: 'But I’ve been going down at maximum level for a while.'
Dubois: 'No, No, No!… Don’t go up !… No, No!'
Bonin: 'Go down, then!'
Robert: 'Damn it! We’re going to crash. It can’t be true!'
Bonin: 'But what’s happening?!'
The recording stops.

The final words of three terrified pilots on board an Air France jet which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean have emerged today for the first time.