[ktta]

The France clue actually contradicts my guess, because I'm guessing that was an Airbus? Anyways, he's one theory:

Boeing has an issue where its radio altimeters are affected by C-band 5G transmissions. I believe maybe the pilots were relying more on the precision of the altimeter because their vision was impaired due to the bad weather? The whole 'turn off phones' instruction could be because people would follow the unusual request to turn off their phones instead of just telling them to put it in airplane mode (which is so common that some people just don't bother)

[r00fus]

Last flight I had from SFO->CDG was on a Boeing 737-800. AirFrance doesn't mean it's always Airbus.

[ktta]

They didn't mention it was AirFrance in their origninal comment, and when they said "in France", I assumed an intra-France flight. Many regional & LCC carriers in Europe operate Airbus planes exclusively.

[usr1106]

If SFO is supposed to mean San Francisco and CDG Paris then certainly not. The max range of a 737-800 is about 50% of the distance.

[pantojax45]

It’s a 777

[r00fus]

You're correct. Here's the plane we took: 777-300ER

https://us.trip.com/flights/status-af084/

[rory]

I'm pretty ignorant of airplane models, Air France flight but it was a large plane so may have been a Boeing 777.

[atlasunshrugged]

I think they meant because it's Air France and the EU generally tries to support Airbus (based in Europe) rather than Boeing (based in the U.S.) it seems likely that it is an Airbus aircraft

[rory]

I understand-- I looked it up, and although they're only buying Airbus going forward, most of their 10-across fleet is still 777: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_fleet