Thunderstorms along the Intertropical Convergence Zone played a role in the loss of Air France Flight 447 , which left Rio de Janeiro – Galeão International Airport on Sunday , May 31 , 2009 , at about 7:00 p.m. local time ( 6:00 p.m. EDT or 10:00 p.m. UTC ) and had been expected to land at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris on Monday , June 1 , 2009 , at 11:15 a.m. ( 5:15 a.m. EDT or 9:15 a.m. UTC ) . The aircraft crashed with no survivors while flying through a series of large ITCZ thunderstorms , and ice forming rapidly on airspeed sensors was the precipitating cause for a cascade of human errors which ultimately doomed the flight . Most aircraft flying these routes are able to avoid the larger convective cells without incident
Air France Flight 447
Air France Flight 447
Intertropical Convergence Zone