Paris, 18 April 2023 (GNP): Air France and Airbus, the plane manufacturer, were cleared of all charges on Monday after a French court concluded that it was unable to prove that the two companies’ faults were to blame for the 2009 accident of a Rio-Paris aircraft.
On June 1, 2009, a storm over the Atlantic Ocean forced the jet carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members to fade away from the radar. The plane and its black box recorders were discovered on the ocean floor at a depth of more than 13,000 feet after two years of searching.
The two French companies went on trial in October to discover who was accountable for the worst aviation accident in Air France history, which resulted in the deaths of all 228 passengers and crew on flight AF447.
Though the decision was anticipated when the Paris court received the prosecutor’s advice not to pursue a conviction, it still provoked an outpouring of grief from those whose loved ones died in this tragedy.
According to the three-judge panel, there was insufficient evidence to support any link between the crash and the company’s conduct. The official inquiry determined that the accident was caused by a multitude of factors, including the pilot’s error and the freezing over of external sensors known as pitot tubes.
As the eight-week trial’s sessions came to a close, prosecutors declared it “impossible” to prosecute the two giants of the aviation industry who had been accused of involuntary manslaughter but had refuted the allegations.
If found guilty, the two companies would have faced a $250,000 fine and serious harm to their reputations.
The pilots, who died in the crash, were given the bulk of the blame by the prosecution. The entire causes of the tragedy will never be identified, according to Air France and Airbus lawyers, who both pointed the finger at pilot error.
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Danièle Lamy, who lost her son Eric in the accident and head an organization for victims’ families got upset as the ruling was declared and remarked that “We are sickened. The court is telling us, ‘go on, there’s not a problem here, there’s nothing to see”.
“For the powerful, impunity reigns. Centuries pass, and nothing changes”, she said. “The families of victims are mortified and in total disarray”.
“We expected an impartial judgment; this was not the case. We are disgusted”, she added.
The head of an association representing 56 Brazilian families of victims, Nelson Faria Marinho, lost his son in the crash who was traveling to Angola for a job. He said, “France isn’t serious. It manufactured a killer plane and they’re covering everything else up”.
“With all the accidents, all the tragedies, the first thing they do is blame the pilot, which isn’t true. I accompanied this tragedy step by step”, he added. It was “excessively automatic”, he said of the plane. “It is a killer plane and they didn’t correct it”.
Although the court did not find the companies guilty of criminal conduct, the judges ruled that Air France and Airbus possess civil liability for the crash’s harm and directed them to provide reparations to the deceased’s family members.
In response to the ruling, Air France stated in a statement that it “will always remember the victims of this terrible accident, and express deep compassion to all of their loved ones”.
