The 2009 Air France crash is being compared with Malaysia Airlines flight 370. Rémi Jouty, Director of the BEA, the agency that led the investigation into the Air France crash, tells us what safety authorities learned from that disaster.

TWO Air France pilots were asleep, leaving a rookie at the controls, before the plane crashed into the sea in 2009, killing all 228 people board.

Disturbing new recorder information from doomed Flight 447 which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean five years ago also reveals one of the pilots shouted "F**k, we're dead" as the plane went down.

The shocking details have emerged in a new investigation, published in the October edition of Vanity Fair magazine, exposing the troubling "piloting culture" within Air France at the time.

Recorded conversations between 37-year-old David Robert, Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, and Marc Dubois - the 58-year-old captain - reveal that two of them were sleeping when the Airbus 330 experienced trouble in a tropical storm. The plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France.

According to Vanity Fair, Bonin, dubbed the "Company Baby" with only a few hundred flight hours under his belt, was left in charge while the captain slept. It was known that the veteran captain only got one hour of sleep the previous night, spending most of his time with his travel companion, an off-duty flight attendant and opera singer.

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"If the captain had stayed in position through the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, it would have delayed his sleep by no more than 15 minutes, and because of his experience, maybe the story would have ended differently," chief investigator Alain Bouillard is quoted as saying.

"But I do not believe it was fatigue that caused him to leave. It was more like customary behaviour, part of the piloting culture within Air France. And his leaving was not against the rules. Still, it is surprising. If you are responsible for the outcome, you do not go on vacation during the main event."

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According to the investigation, the plane was suffering from a loss of lift and its airspeed sensors had malfunctioned. But instead of following procedures and lowering the plane's nose, the junior pilot raised it.

Dubois finally entered the cockpit one minute and 38 seconds after the malfunction - but it was too late.

Robert said: "F**k, we're going to crash! It's not true! But what's happening?" Then either Robert or Bonin say: "F**k, we're dead" before the plane crashed.

According to Vanity Fair, the turbulence and malfunction should have been a "non-event" that could have been easily handled. However, the "airplane was in control of the pilots, and if they had done nothing, they would have done all they needed to do".

It took authorities about two years to retrieve bodies and essential records from the bottom of the ocean.

Air France has denied its pilots were incompetent, but have improved their training program. Both Air France and Airbus are facing manslaughter charges and there have been detailed investigations.

