Decisive day for Airbus and Air France, accused of manslaughter for the Rio – Paris flight in which 228 people died

Seventeen years after the crash of the Rio-Paris flight in 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean, the Court of Appeal in Paris will deliver the judgment on Thursday in the trial on the charges of manslaughter brought against Air France and Airbus, which were acquitted in the first instance, reports AFP.

After seeking and obtaining acquittals for the airline and the plane maker in the first trial, the prosecution reversed itself at the end of the two-month appeal process in the fall and demanded that they be convicted of the deadliest accident in the history of French companies, which killed 228 people.

A conviction would be essentially symbolic, but devastating in terms of public relations for the two companies, notes France Presse.

Air France and Airbus, harshly criticized by the prosecution

As legal entities, they can only be sentenced to a maximum fine of 225,000 euros.

“Nothing came, no word of consolation honestly. It's a granite defense. One word sums up this whole circus: indecency,” prosecutors criticized in their plea in late November.

“Sixteen years to come and say anything and pull arguments out of your sleeve or out of your hat is unacceptable from a company,” the magistrates said.

Both at first instance and on appeal, Airbus and Air France clearly rejected the idea of ​​any criminal liability.

The companies blamed the pilots

Highlighting the wrong choices made by the pilots in the emergency, the Airbus representative estimated in court that “human factors were decisive” in the accident.

On June 1, 2009, flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic in the middle of the night, hours after takeoff, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew members.

On board the A330 aircraft were citizens of 33 countries, of which 72 were French and 58 were Brazilian.

The black boxes confirmed the initial cause of the accident: freezing of the Pitot speed probes while the plane was flying at high altitude in the difficult weather zone near the equator.

For the General Prosecutor's Office, the mistakes made by Airbus and Air France “definitely contributed to the occurrence of the air accident”, which went down in history thanks to the famous photo of the tricolor painted tail piece floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The prosecution accuses Airbus of “underestimating the seriousness of the malfunctions of the pitot probes with which the plane was equipped”, as well as “deficient information of the crews of the operating companies, which prevented the pilots from reacting as they should and created the situation that led to the accident”.

At the end of the trial at first instance, the criminal court in Paris acquitted Airbus and Air France from the criminal point of view in 2023, while recognizing their civil liability.

He found that although “recklessness” and “negligence” had been committed, “no definite causal link” with this accident could be demonstrated.