Air France and Airbus are back in court Monday to face an appeal against their 2023 acquittal over the 2009 crash of flight AF447 from Rio to Paris, which killed all 228 on board - the airline’s deadliest disaster.
On 1 June 2009, Air France flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris was cruising over the Atlantic when the pilots lost control of the aircraft and plunged into the ocean.
All 216 passengers and 12 crewmembers on board were killed, including 72 French and 58 Brazilian nationals.
A lower court cleared Air France and Airbus of corporate manslaughter in 2023 in the trial that focused on faulty sensors that measured flight speed, which became blocked by ice crystals during a storm over the Atlantic.
French investigators had concluded that the flight’s pilots had mishandled the temporary loss of data from the blocked sensors, called pitot tubes, and pushed the plane into an aerodynamic stall or free fall, without responding to alerts.
The companies blamed the crash on pilot error, denying any criminal responsibility.
Lawyers representing the victims’ families argued that both Air France and Airbus knew about the problems with the sensors and had failed to provide adequate high-altitude emergency training to pilots.
Faulty equipment
The lower court ruled that while the airline and aviation giant had committed negligent acts, they could not be proven to have directly caused the crash.
The judge ruled that Airbus committed four negligent acts, including withholding information about problematic tubes from flight operators, and Air France was negligent in how it communicated technical information about the faulty equipment to its pilots.
Prosecutors lodged an appeal, under pressure of victims’ families, despite having initially requested the charges be dropped.
If convicted in the retrial, which starts Monday and runs through 27 November, the companies face €225,000 fines each, alongside significant reputational damage.
(with newswires)
