AF447 Rio-Paris crash: Airbus and Air France acquitted by French court 14 years after the facts

The Paris Criminal Court has just delivered its much-awaited judgment on Monday, fourteen years after the tragedy which claimed the lives of 228 victims. On board the Airbus A330 were people of 33 nationalities, including 72 French and 58 Brazilians. This was the deadliest accident in the history of French companies.

The court decided on Monday to exonerate Airbus and Air France in the trial relating to the crash of Rio-Paris flight AF447, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009. The decision was highly symbolic because the maximum penalties incurred by the two companies could not exceed 225,000 euros.

Airbus and Air France were prosecuted for manslaughter after the crash of the Airbus A330 registered F-GZCP, operating flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which killed 228 people 14 years ago. The Paris Criminal Court exonerated the two companies, judging that, if faults had been committed, “no certain causal link” with the accident had “could not be demonstrated“.

Shortly after 13:30, when the acquittal was announced, the large courtroom was filled with relatives of the victims, Air France and Airbus teams and journalists.

“We are disgusted,” reacted Danièle Lamy, president of the association Entraide et Solidarité AF447. “All that remains of these 14 years of waiting is despair, consternation and anger”. “We are told: responsible but not guilty. And it’s true that we were waiting for the word guilty,” said Alain Jakubowicz, one of their lawyers.

According to a press release, Air France “takes note of the judgment. The company will always remember the memory of the victims of this terrible accident and expresses its deepest sympathy to all of their loved ones.”

Airbus considered that this decision was consistent with the dismissal pronounced at the end of the investigation in 2019. The group also expresses its compassion to the relatives of the victims and reaffirms its total commitment in terms of aviation safety.

After two months of trial, the prosecution requested the release of the two companies. He felt that their guilt was “impossible to demonstrate“. These requisitions had already scandalised the civil parties, after a legal procedure of more than a decade.