Air France, Airbus to face manslaughter trial over 2009 Rio-Paris crash: Court

A Paris appeals court on May 12 has ruled that both Air France and Airbus have to face a trial over the crash of an Airbus A330 jet back in June 2009. At least 12 years ago, flight AF447 that was en route Rio de Janeiro to Paris, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm killing all 228 people on board. The Paris court’s ruling on Wednesday, as per the DW report, came after the general prosecutor requested that the manslaughter trial should go against Air France and Airbus. Initially,  the Paris prosecutor demanded that only Air France must be subjected to a trial for the Rio-Paris crash.

Reportedly, the latest ruling came after both teams had contested in the 2019 decision by the two investigating magistrates to drop the charges. According to the magistrates, they could not ascribe fault to the companies due to what appeared to be an error on the pilot’s behalf. However, as per the report, the investigators of the fatal crash had also concluded that the incident was caused by faulty speed monitoring equipment.

What did the probe team determine?

While Air France and Airbus will now face the trial, the probe team had determined that the flight crew had mishandled the loss of speed readings from the sensors that had been blocked with ice. Prosecutors reportedly accuse Air France of indirectly causing the tragedy by failing to provide the required training to the crew in a malfunctioning situation. During the crash, the pilots were said to have caused the aircraft to stall by holding its nose too high and eventually leading to the crash, which was termed as the ‘deadliest’ crash in the history of Air France.

France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis said in its final report that a series of errors by pilots and a fault to react effectively to technical problems led to the crash of flight 447 on June 1, 2009. The report stated, “The occurrence of the failure in the context of flight in cruise completely surprised the crew of flight AF 447.” As per CNN report, it added, “In the first minute after the autopilot disconnection, the failure of the attempt to understand the situation and the disruption of crew cooperation had a multiplying effect, inducing total loss of cognitive control of the situation."

Image credits: AP/Unsplash