A French appeals court found Air France and Airbus guilty of manslaughter over the 2009 AF447 disaster that killed 228 passengers and crew over the Atlantic Ocean.
WEBDESK – Source: BBC
A French appeals court on Thursday found Air France and Airbus guilty of manslaughter over the 2009 crash of Flight AF447, overturning an earlier acquittal and holding both companies fully responsible for one of the deadliest aviation disasters in French history.
The court ruled that the airline and aircraft manufacturer were “solely and entirely responsible” for the tragedy in which the Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people on board.
The verdict came after an eight-week appeal trial in Paris. Both companies have denied wrongdoing throughout the proceedings and announced plans to appeal the ruling.
The court ordered Air France and Airbus to pay the maximum fine of €225,000 each, though several victims’ families criticized the penalties as symbolic considering the scale of the disaster.
Flight AF447 disappeared during a storm while cruising at 38,000 feet over the Atlantic. Investigators later determined the aircraft stalled after faulty speed sensors provided incorrect airspeed data to the cockpit crew.
French investigators concluded in 2012 that a combination of technical failures and pilot error caused the crash. Confused by unreliable readings, the pilots mistakenly raised the aircraft’s nose during the stall instead of lowering it, causing the jet to plunge into the ocean.
The wreckage was eventually discovered after an extensive search operation covering nearly 10,000 square kilometers of seabed. The aircraft’s black boxes were not recovered until 2011, following months of deep-sea exploration.
The passengers included nationals from 33 countries, including 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, 5 Britons, 3 Irish nationals, and 2 Americans.
Among the victims were Brazilian royal family member Pedro Luiz de Orleans e Bragança, three Irish doctors returning from holiday, and 11-year-old British child Alexander Bjoroy from Bristol.
Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 victims’ association, welcomed the verdict and said the justice system had finally acknowledged “the pain of the families faced with a collective tragedy of unbearable brutality.”
During the trial, prosecutors accused both companies of “unacceptable” conduct and sharply criticized their defense arguments.
The crash prompted major reforms in aviation safety, including updated pilot training procedures and the replacement of the aircraft’s pitot tube speed sensors across fleets worldwide.
At the time of the accident, Air France said the captain had accumulated more than 11,000 flight hours, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus A330 aircraft type. The aircraft had undergone maintenance checks just weeks before the fatal journey.
