French court convicts Airbus, Air France for 2009 crash that killed 228

A French appeals court on Thursday convicted Airbus and Air France of involuntary manslaughter for the 2009 crash of Flight AF447, which killed 228 people, making it the deadliest aviation disaster in French history.

The Paris Court of Appeal ruled that both companies were “solely and entirely responsible for the crash of flight AF447” and ordered them to pay 225,000 euros ($261,720) per passenger, the maximum fine for corporate manslaughter.

While the fines are largely symbolic, the ruling concluded an eight-week trial that victims’ families viewed as a final opportunity for justice after a lower court acquitted both companies in 2023.

Airbus and Air France have consistently denied all charges.

Following the verdict, Airbus announced it would appeal to France’s highest court, arguing that the decision contradicts both the prosecution’s recommendations and the previous acquittal.

Prosecutors had previously warned that an appeal was likely and criticized the companies’ conduct throughout the more than decade-long legal process.

“Nothing has come of it – not a single word of sincere comfort,” prosecutor Rodolphe Juy-Birmann said during the trial in November. “One word sums up this whole circus: indecency.”

The accident occurred on June 1, 2009, when Flight AF447 vanished from radar while traveling from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members.

It took two years for a deep-sea search to recover the plane’s flight data recorders, known as black boxes.

Investigators determined that the pilots had pitched the aircraft upward as it encountered ice-blocked sensors during a storm over the mid-Atlantic, causing the plane to stall and crash into the ocean.

While Airbus and Air France have attributed the crash to pilot error, attorneys representing the victims’ families argued that both companies were aware of a defect in the plane’s pitot tubes, which measure airspeed.

Prosecutors stated that pilots lacked training to handle an emergency when the tubes malfunctioned, triggering cockpit alarms and deactivating the autopilot.

Air France lawyer Pascal Weil stated in October that the company “had the means to conduct high-altitude training, but we did not do so because we sincerely believed it was unnecessary.”