1948 Air France accident near Toulouse
Sud-Est SE.161 Languedoc · The 1948 Air France accident near Toulouse occurred on 23 November 1948
From Toulouse-Montaudran Airfield, France to Aérodrome Morin - Védrines (LFDB)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 4
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Sud-Est SE.161 Languedoc
- Aircraft type
- Sud Est SE-161
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- F-BATM
- Operator
- Air France
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From Toulouse-Montaudran Airfield, FranceTo Aérodrome Morin - Védrines (LFDB)
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Toulouse, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1948 Air France accident near Toulouse occurred on 23 November 1948. On that day an Air France Sud-Est SE.161 Languedoc, with which a flight from Toulouse to Montauban was to be carried out, crashed. In the accident, which was caused by a maintenance error, one person on board lost their life.
Accident sequence
The aircraft crashed immediately after take-off and caught fire. The crew managed to leave the aircraft, but Emmanuel Arin fell onto one of the burning engines when jumping out and died two days later of his burns.
Investigation and cause
Cause
It turned out that the aircraft had gone out of control due to reversed controls. This was because the control cables of the aileron controls had been accidentally swapped, i.e. reinstalled crossed over, during the maintenance carried out previously.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall der Air France bei Toulouse 1948” (revision 260313209, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall der Air France bei Toulouse 1948
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 260313209 · 2025-10-04 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q117185309
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall der Air France bei Toulouse 1948" (page 12572723, revision 260313209), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata coordinates)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): An Air France Languedoc on a flight from Toulouse to Montauban: an airline flight. The article: "an Air France Sud-Est SE.161 Languedoc, with which a flight from Toulouse to Montauban was to be carried out, crashed"
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.