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France – A Paris Court today acquitted Airbus and Air France in the case of the accident that occurred on June 1, 2009 on the Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight, which crashed into the Atlantic, leaving no survivors. One of the deadliest air accidents in the last 20 years.
For 13 years, both companies were in the dock accused of involuntary manslaughter for the air accident in which the 228 people died, who were on board the plane (216 passengers and 12 crew), including a baby and seven children. The victims were of 33 different nationalities, in particular 73 French and 58 Brazilian.
A conviction would degrade the public image of both companies, references in their respective sectors and listed on the Stock Exchange.
At the end of 2022, the two multinationals requested acquittal, considering that their responsibility had not been proven, and heAfter three months of the process, the Prosecutor’s Office had aligned itself with this thesis, considering that it was “impossible to prove” the guilt of the accident.
This fact angered victims’ associations such as Ayuda y Solidaridad AF447, that demanded a condemnation of the aircraft builder and the airline.
“The Prosecutor’s Office has given itself permission to criticize the pilots for 5 hours and the 228 victims do not count. They have been killed a second time,” cried Daniele Lamy, president of the Ayuda e Solidaridad association, on December 8, 2022. AF447 and who lost his 37-year-old son in the accident.
The initial hypothesis was confirmed
The investigators examined the black boxes of the 205-tonne plane, found after two years of searching at a depth of 4,000 meters.
The nitty-gritty of the accident investigation, occurred in the middle of an equatorial storm, was in determining if it was due to a lack of preparation of the pilots, attributable to Air France; a failure of the speed measurement device, which would be the responsibility of Airbus; or if, as it was considered during the investigation, everything was due to an inexperience of the pilots, who died in the accident.
The French Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) concluded that the accident occurred after ice blocked the plane’s speed measurement probes, which made the pilots unaware of that data when they were going through a zone of turbulence.
For this reason, they did not apply the proper protocol and raised the position of the device until it lost its horizontality, ceased to have lift and was in a free fall situation 1,150 kilometers from the coast of Recife (Northeast Brazil). The pilots thought they were climbing when in reality they were losing altitude.
Thus, the court could not demonstrate a true causal link between the incriminated probes or the alleged lack of information; and considered that the pilots did have the necessary knowledge to handle the frozen probes.
The BEA (Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la Sécurité de l’Aviation Civile) revealed that Air France was concerned about the failure of the Pitot probes, manufactured by Thales to measure airspeed, and had begun to receive a new model, less prone to high-altitude icing problems, when tragedy struck.
If the airlines had been found guilty, they would have had to pay a fine of 225,000 euros each, which would add to the compensation already paid and the high costs of the process.
With EFE and France24.fr
