{"id":17745,"date":"2026-05-21T15:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/17745\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T15:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:41:08","slug":"french-court-finds-airbus-air-france-guilty-of-manslaughter-in-2009-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/17745\/","title":{"rendered":"French court finds Airbus, Air France guilty of manslaughter in 2009 crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

A French appeals court has found Airbus and Air France guilty of manslaughter in 2009 Rio de Janeiro-Paris crash that killed 228 people \u2013 the worst aviation disaster in the country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The Paris Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that both companies were \u201csolely and entirely responsible for the crash of flight AF447\u201d, and ordered a payment of 225,000 euros ($261,720) for each passenger, the maximum fine possible for corporate manslaughter.<\/p>\n

Although the penalties are largely symbolic, they capped an eight-week trial that victims\u2019 families saw as a last chance to find justice two years after a lower court acquitted Airbus and Air France.<\/p>\n

Both companies have repeatedly denied all charges.<\/p>\n

Following the ruling, Airbus said it would appeal to France\u2019s highest court, saying the latest finding contradicted submissions from prosecutors and the 2023 acquittal.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors previously warned that an appeal was likely and denounced the companies\u2019 behaviour throughout the decade-plus legal process.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing has come of it \u2013 not a single word of sincere comfort,\u201d said prosecutor Rodolphe Juy-Birmann as the trial was under way last November. \u201cOne word sums up this whole circus: indecency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Airbus<\/p>\n

Divers recover the tail section from the Air France A330 that crashed into the south Atlantic while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009 [File: Brazilian navy\/AFP]<\/p>\n

Sensor malfunction<\/p>\n

The crash unfolded on June 1, 2009, when flight AF447 disappeared from radar screens as it headed from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to the French capital Paris with 216 passengers and 12 crew.<\/p>\n

Two years passed before a deep-sea search uncovered the plane\u2019s black boxes, which record flight data.<\/p>\n

Investigators found the pilots had pushed the jet into a climb as it struggled with sensors blocked with ice during a mid-Atlantic storm. The plane stalled and crashed into the ocean.<\/p>\n

While Airbus and Air France have blamed pilot error, the lawyers for passengers\u2019 families argued that both companies knew that there was a problem with the plane\u2019s pitot tubes, which measure flight speed.<\/p>\n

Pilots were not trained to deal with such an emergency as the tubes malfunctioned, prosecutors said, triggering alarms in the cockpit and turning off the plane\u2019s autopilot function.<\/p>\n

Air France lawyer Pascal Weil said in October that the company \u201chad the means to conduct high-altitude training, but we did not do so because we sincerely believed it was unnecessary\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A French appeals court has found Airbus and Air France guilty of manslaughter in 2009 Rio de Janeiro-Paris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13021],"tags":[739,4616,12689,13075,13319,13187,13321,13318,13320],"class_list":["post-17745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus","tag-air-france","tag-airbus","tag-corporate-manslaughter","tag-flight-af447","tag-french-appeals-court","tag-paris-court-of-appeal","tag-prosecutors","tag-rio-de-janeiro","tag-rio-de-janeiro-paris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}