Air France and Airbus guilty of corporate manslaughter for 2009 plane crash | Plane crashes
A Paris appeals court found Airbus and Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter over the 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash that killed 228 passengers and crew in France’s worst air disaster.
The decision was the latest milestone in a legal marathon involving two of France’s most emblematic companies and the families of mostly French, Brazilian and German victims.
Relatives of some of the 228 passengers and crew who died when the Airbus A330 disappeared in the darkness during an Atlantic storm gathered to hear the verdict after a 17-year legal battle to determine blame for France’s worst air disaster.
The court ordered the companies to pay a maximum fine of €225,000 (£194,500) per person for corporate manslaughter, at the request of prosecutors during the eight-week trial.
In 2023, a lower court acquitted the two companies, which had repeatedly denied the charges.
The maximum penalties, which amounted to just a few minutes of both companies’ revenue, were widely dismissed as a token penalty. But family groups said a conviction would be a recognition of their plight.
French lawyers predicted that there may be more applications to the country’s highest court, which could take years for the process and extend the relatives’ ordeal.
Flight AF447 disappeared from radar screens on June 1, 2009, with passengers from 33 nationalities. The black boxes were found two years later following a deep-sea search.
In 2012, BEA accident investigators found that the aircrew pushed the jet into a stall after mishandling a problem with icy sensors, cutting off lift from under the wings.
But prosecutors focused their attention on alleged failures within both the aircraft manufacturer and the airline. These included inadequate training and failure to follow up on previous incidents.
To prove manslaughter, prosecutors had to not only find that the companies were guilty of negligence, but also pull together the threads to show how that led to the crash.
Under the French system, last year’s appeal proceedings involved a completely new hearing in which the evidence was examined from scratch. Any appeal following Thursday’s decision will shift the focus from the AF447 cockpit to the intricacies of the law.
