French court finds Airbus, Air France guilty of manslaughter in 2009 crash

A French appeals court has found Airbus and Air France guilty of manslaughter in 2009 Rio de Janeiro-Paris crash that killed 228 people – the worst aviation disaster in the country’s history.

The Paris Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that both companies were “solely and entirely responsible for the crash of flight AF447”, and ordered a payment of 225,000 euros ($261,720) for each passenger, the maximum fine possible for corporate manslaughter.

Although the penalties are largely symbolic, they capped an eight-week trial that victims’ families saw as a last chance to find justice two years after a lower court acquitted Airbus and Air France.

Both companies have repeatedly denied all charges.

Following the ruling, Airbus said it would appeal to France’s highest court, saying the latest finding contradicted submissions from prosecutors and the 2023 acquittal.

Prosecutors previously warned that an appeal was likely and denounced the companies’ behaviour throughout the decade-plus legal process.

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

Divers recover the tail section from the Air France A330 that crashed into the south Atlantic while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009 [File: Brazilian navy/AFP]

Sensor malfunction

The crash unfolded on June 1, 2009, when flight AF447 disappeared from radar screens as it headed from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to the French capital Paris with 216 passengers and 12 crew.

Two years passed before a deep-sea search uncovered the plane’s black boxes, which record flight data.

Investigators found the pilots had pushed the jet into a climb as it struggled with sensors blocked with ice during a mid-Atlantic storm. The plane stalled and crashed into the ocean.

While Airbus and Air France have blamed pilot error, the lawyers for passengers’ families argued that both companies knew that there was a problem with the plane’s pitot tubes, which measure flight speed.