Intertropical Convergence Zone - Hazards

Hazards

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 7 p.m. (4:00 p.m. EDT) and had been expected to land at Paris's Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport on Monday June 1, 2009, at 11:15 a.m. 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 the cascade of human errors which ultimately doomed the flight. Most aircraft flying these routes are able to avoid the larger convective cells without incident.