A Paris appeals court has found Airbus and Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter over the 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash that killed 228 passengers and crew. The verdict marks a significant milestone in a 17-year legal battle involving two of France's most emblematic companies and the families of victims from the country's worst air disaster.
The court ordered each company to pay the maximum fine for corporate manslaughter, €225,000 (£194,500), as requested by prosecutors during the eight-week trial. In 2023, a lower court had cleared both companies, which have consistently denied the charges. The fines, equivalent to just a few minutes of either company's revenue, have been widely dismissed as a token penalty, but family groups said the conviction represents recognition of their plight.
Flight AF447 vanished from radar screens on 1 June 2009 with people of 33 nationalities on board. The plane's black boxes were recovered two years later after a deep-sea search. In 2012, crash investigators found that the flight crew had pushed the jet into a stall after mishandling a problem with iced-up sensors. Prosecutors, however, focused on alleged failures at the planemaker and airline, including poor training and failure to follow up on earlier incidents.
To prove manslaughter, prosecutors needed to establish that the companies were guilty of negligence and demonstrate how this caused the crash. Under the French system, the appeal proceedings involved a completely new trial with evidence reviewed from scratch. French lawyers have predicted further appeals to the country's highest court, potentially prolonging the ordeal for relatives for years to come.
