Air France and Airbus found guilty in 2009 fatal Atlantic flight crash

Air France and Airbus were found guilty of manslaughter by the Paris Court of Appeal on Thursday over the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 people on board. The verdict came after an eight-week trial into one of France’s deadliest aviation disasters. The court found the two companies responsible for the accident, overturning an earlier 2023 ruling that exempted them from criminal liability.Air France and Airbus were each fined €225,000, the maximum allowed under French law for such violations. However, many relatives of the victims said the punishment was too lenient given the scale of the tragedy.The companies denied wrongdoing and said they would challenge the ruling through legal means.Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 Victims Association, whose son died in the crash, said the verdict was an important step for grieving families to seek accountability. She said the ruling showed authorities were beginning to recognize “the pain and suffering of families facing the collective tragedy of unbearable brutality”.Flight AF447 crashed on June 1, 2009, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members from 33 countries. The victims included 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, 5 Britons, 3 Irish and 2 Americans. Brazilian Prince Pedro Luis de Orleans Braganca was also among the victims.The disaster remains one of the aviation industry’s most complex crash investigations and recovery operations. Search teams spent months scouring nearly 10,000 square kilometers of the Atlantic Ocean to locate the wreckage. The flight recorders were eventually recovered in 2011 after a deep-sea search operation.French investigators concluded in 2012 that a malfunctioning airspeed sensor and pilot error caused the crash. During severe weather, ice crystals can clog an aircraft’s pitot tubes, causing inconsistent speed readings that can confuse aircraft systems. Investigators found that the pilot reacted incorrectly after the plane entered an aerodynamic stall, causing the plane to rapidly lose altitude before plunging into the ocean.The accident prompted significant changes in aviation safety procedures, including improved pilot training for high-altitude stalls and the replacement of airspeed sensors on Airbus planes.One of the victims was Nelson Marinho Filho, who nearly missed the plane and boarded the plane shortly before takeoff. His family waited more than two years for his body to be buried. Alexander Bjoroy, an 11-year-old boy from Bristol, was returning home to the UK after a holiday in Brazil, while Irish doctors Eithne Walls, Jane Deasy and Aisling Butler also died in a car crash on their way back.According to Air France, the captain had accumulated more than 11,000 flying hours, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus aircraft that was involved in the accident. The plane was last inspected in April 2009, weeks before the crash.