Guilty verdict in France’s deadliest air disaster after 17-year legal battle

A Paris appeals court on Wednesday, May 21, found Airbus and Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter over the 2009 Rio de Janeiro–Paris Flight AF447 disaster, which killed all 228 passengers and crew in France’s deadliest aviation accident.

The ruling marks a significant development in a 17-year legal process involving two of France’s most prominent companies and the families of victims, who were largely French, Brazilian, and German.

Relatives of those who died gathered in court to hear the verdict after a long campaign to establish responsibility for the crash. The Airbus A330 disappeared from radar during the night of June 1, 2009, while flying through a storm over the Atlantic Ocean.

The court ordered Airbus and Air France to each pay the maximum fine for corporate manslaughter, set at €225,000 ($261,720), in line with prosecutors’ requests during an eight-week trial.

In 2023, a lower court had acquitted both companies, which had consistently denied the charges. Although the fines represent only a fraction of the companies’ revenues, and have been widely described as symbolic, families of the victims said a conviction would constitute an important acknowledgement of their suffering.

Legal experts in France expect further appeals to the country’s highest court, a process that could extend the case for several more years and prolong the ordeal for the victims’ relatives.

The crash involved passengers and crew from 33 different nationalities. The aircraft’s black boxes were recovered in 2011 following an extensive deep-sea search lasting nearly two years.

A 2012 report by France’s BEA air accident investigation agency concluded that the pilots had inadvertently placed the aircraft into an aerodynamic stall after mishandling a malfunction caused by iced-up speed sensors, which led to a loss of lift.

However, prosecutors focused on alleged systemic failings by both Airbus and Air France, including inadequate pilot training and failure to adequately respond to earlier similar incidents.

To secure a conviction for manslaughter, prosecutors were required not only to demonstrate negligence but also to establish a direct causal link between those failures and the crash.

Under French judicial procedure, the appeal constituted a full retrial, with all evidence re-examined from the beginning. Any further appeals following this verdict are expected to centre on legal interpretation rather than the technical circumstances of the AF447 crash.

By Tamilla Hasanova