The aircraft, a Fairchild FH-227, took off from Nancy-Essey Airport at 5:53 local time and climbed to 14,000 feet, the flight's cruising altitude.

Control of the aircraft was lost, the plane descended rapidly, struck powerlines and crashed.

[1] The investigations findings were that in bad weather conditions, the Fairchild FH-227 operating the flight suffered an electrical malfunction, and the aircraft pitched nose down.

The accepted hypothesis is that the electrical malfunction caused loss of attitude reference and autopilot disconnect causing the aircraft to enter a high speed dive.

[1] In the absence of an independent horizon, the crew did not have any usable attitude reference while the aircraft was in a high-speed dive, thus contributing to the crash.