Air France Flight 296Q was a chartered flight of a new Airbus A320-111 operated by Air France for Air Charter International. On 26 June 1988, the plane crashed while making a low pass over Mulhouse–Habsheim Airfield (ICAO airport code LFGB) as part of the Habsheim Air Show. Most of the crash sequence, which occurred in front of several thousand spectators, was caught on video. This particular flight was the A320's first passenger flight (most of those on board were journalists and raffle winners). The low-speed flyover, with landing gear down, was supposed to take place at an altitude of ; instead, the plane performed the flyover at , skimmed the treetops of the forest at the end of the runway (which had not been shown on the airport map given to the pilots) and crashed. All the passengers survived the initial impact, but a woman and two children died from smoke inhalation before they could escape after struggling to unfasten the seatbelt. Official reports concluded that the pilots flew too low, too slow, failed to see the forest and accidentally flew into it. The captain, Michel Asseline, disputed the report and claimed an error in the fly-by-wire computer prevented him from applying thrust and pulling up. Five individuals, including the captain and first officer, were later found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Captain Asseline, who maintained his innocence, would go on to serve ten months of prison and a further ten months of probation. This was the first fatal crash of an Airbus A320. Aircraft The accident aircraft, an Airbus A320-111, registration F-GFKC, serial number 9, first flew on 6 January 1988 and was delivered to Air France on 23 June, three days prior to its destruction. It was the third A320 delivered to Air France, the launch customer. Flight deck crew Captain Michel Asseline, 44, had been a pilot with Air France for almost twenty years and had the following endorsements: Caravelle; Boeing 707, 727, and 737; and Airbus A300 and A310. He was a highly distinguished pilot with 10,463 flight hours. A training captain since 1979, Asseline was appointed to head the company's A320 training subdivision at the end of 1987. As Air France's technical pilot, he had been heavily involved in test flying the A320 type and had carried out maneuvers beyond normal operational limitations. Asseline had total confidence in the aircraft's computer systems. First Officer Pierre Mazières,