45, had been flying with the airline since 1969 and had been a training captain for six years. He was endorsed on the Caravelle, Boeing 707 and 737, and had qualified as an A320 captain three months before the accident. Mazières had 10,853 hours of flight time. Flight plan At the time of the incident, only three of the new aircraft type had been delivered to Air France, and the newest one (in service for two days) had been chosen for the flyover. The aircraft was to fly from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Basel–Mulhouse Airport for a press conference. Then, sightseeing charter passengers would board and the aircraft would fly the short distance to the small Mulhouse–Habsheim Airfield. The captain would make a low-level fly-pass over Runway 02, climb up and turn back, and repeat the fly-pass over the same runway in the reciprocal direction (Runway 20). This would be followed by a sightseeing trip south to Mont Blanc before the passengers would be returned to Basel–Mulhouse Airport. Finally, the aircraft would return to Paris. The pilots had each had a busy weekend and did not receive the flight plan until the morning of the flight. They received no verbal details about the flyover or the aerodrome itself. Flyover The flight plan was that as the flight approached the airfield, the pilot would extend third-stage flap, lower the landing gear, and line up for level flight at . The captain would slow the aircraft to its minimum flying speed with maximum angle of attack, disable the "alpha floor" (the function that would otherwise automatically increase engine thrust when the angle of attack reached 15°) and rely on the first officer to adjust the engine thrust manually to maintain 100 feet. After the first pass, the first officer would then apply the takeoff/go-around switch (TOGA) power and climb steeply before turning back for the second pass. "I've done it twenty times!" Asseline assured his first officer. The flyover had been approved by Air France's Air Operations Directorate and Flight Safety Department, and air traffic control and Basel tower had been informed. Habsheim aerodrome was too small to be listed in the aircraft's flight computer, thereby requiring a visual approach; both pilots were also unfamiliar with the airfield when they began their descent from only from the field. This distance was too short for them to stabilise the aircraft's altitude and