“Responsible but not guilty”: Fourteen years after the Rio-Paris crash that killed 228 people, the French judiciary on Monday released Airbus and Air France.
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The Paris Criminal Court exonerated the two companies on a criminal level, ruling that if “recklessness” and “negligence” had been committed, “no definite causal link” to the deadliest accident in French history “could not be demonstrated”. airlines.
The court announced its decision in a courtroom full of families of the victims, Air France and Airbus crews and journalists. When the release was announced, some civilian parties stood up in astonishment as if about to leave the room, before sitting down again as the President began to address the civilian issue.
The court ruled in this regard that the “fault” of the companies had resulted in a “loss of opportunity”, ie increasing the probability that the accident would happen, and declared Airbus and Air France to be “civil” for the damage.
The court remanded the issue of damage assessment to a hearing on September 4.
“We expected an impartial verdict, which was not the case. We are disgusted,” responded Danièle Lamy, President of the Entraide et Solidarité AF447 association. “All that remains of these 14 years of waiting is despair, dismay and anger.”
“We are told: Air France and Airbus are ‘responsible but not guilty’. And it’s true that we’ve been waiting for the word “guilty,” admitted Me Alain Jakubowicz, one of her attorneys. Nevertheless, the Council wanted to maintain the civil “responsibility” highlighted by the court: “No, this accident is not fateful”, “yes, this accident should have been avoided”.
“That doesn’t make sense to me,” said Ophélie Toulliou, who lost her brother in the accident, with a trembling voice, sharing her “feeling of injustice” and her “misunderstanding.”
AFP
Ophélie Toulliou, sister of an accident victim
Air France “takes note of the verdict,” according to a press release. “The company will always cherish the memory of the victims of this terrible accident and extends its deepest sympathy to all their families (…)”
Airbus believed this decision was “consistent” with the dismissal issued at the end of the investigation in 2019. The aircraft manufacturer also “expresses its sympathy” to the families of the victims and “reaffirms (its) overall commitment (…) in relation to flight safety”.
On June 1, 2009, flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed in the Atlantic Ocean a few hours after takeoff in the middle of the night, killing 216 passengers and 12 crew members.
On board the A330s, registered F-GZCP, were people of 33 nationalities, including 72 French and 58 Brazilians.
This decision was eagerly awaited at the end of a marathon trial marked by contradictory assessments by the judges. At the end of the trial, which took place from October 10 to December 8, prosecutors had demanded the release of the two companies because their guilt was “unprovable”.
The first wreckage of AF447 and bodies had been found days after the crash. But the wreck was only found two years later after a long search at a depth of 3900 meters.
The black boxes confirmed the origin of the accident: the icing of the pitot airspeed probes while the aircraft was flying at high altitude in the difficult weather zone of the “Doldrums” near the equator.
Destabilized by the aftermath of this collapse, one of the co-pilots took an upward flight path and the three pilots were unable to regain control of the aircraft, which stalled and hit the ocean 4 minutes and 23 seconds later.
According to the court, the aircraft manufacturer Airbus had committed “four imprudences or negligence”, in particular by not replacing a model of pitot probes that seemed to freeze more frequently on all A330s given the multiplication of incidents in the months before the accident.
Air France has also embraced “erroneous imprudence”, stressed President Sylvie Daunis, in relation to the methods of distribution of a preventive notice on probe freezing addressed to its pilots. However, “it must be proven that without” these misconducts “the death of the victims would not have occurred”, which is not “certain”, according to the court.