The airline Air France and aircraft manufacturer Airbus have been acquitted at the trial over the crash of the Rio-Paris flight in the summer of 2009. The two companies were charged with involuntary manslaughter for the crash that killed 228 people.
The Paris criminal court acquitted the two companies almost fourteen years after the disaster. He ruled that although errors did occur, “no causal connection with the accident could be demonstrated”. The French public prosecutor had also asked not to convict the two companies.
Flight AF 447, from Rio to Paris, suddenly disappeared from the radar on June 1, 2009. The aircraft, an Airbus A330, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. 228 people of 32 different nationalities, including one Belgian, were killed. It was not until May 2011 that the last bodies were recovered and the black box could be recovered: it was about 4,000 meters deep.
The trial came after years of legal wrangling. The case was dropped in 2019, but the Court of Appeal gave the green light two years ago. According to the court, something was wrong with the training of the pilots, who did not react appropriately when a technical problem occurred.
However, the public prosecutor’s office said at the hearing that the guilt of the companies seemed “impossible to prove”. The companies have always denied responsibility for the crash, but each risked fines of up to 225,000 euros.
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