A French appeals court has found French airline Air France and aircraft manufacturer Airbus guilty of manslaughter over the tragic 2009 crash of Flight AF447, which killed all 228 people on board.<\/p>\n
The Paris Appeals Court ruled that both companies were \u201csolely and entirely responsible\u201d for the disaster, overturning an earlier 2023 court decision that had cleared them of criminal responsibility. The verdict was delivered after an extensive eight-week trial, with both Air France and Airbus announcing plans to appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n
Flight AF447 was travelling from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, on June 1, 2009, when the Airbus A330 aircraft encountered severe storm conditions over the Atlantic Ocean. The aircraft stalled mid-flight and plunged into the ocean from an altitude of approximately 38,000 feet, resulting in one of the deadliest aviation disasters in French history.<\/p>\n
The crash claimed the lives of 216 passengers and 12 crew members. The victims came from 33 countries, including France, Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States. Among those killed were children, medical professionals, engineers and public figures, including Brazilian prince Pedro Luiz de Orleans e Bragan\u00e7a.<\/p>\n
The wreckage remained missing for a long period due to the remote location of the crash site, which was more than 700 miles off the coast of South America. A massive international search operation covering nearly 10,000 square kilometres of seabed was launched. Although some bodies and debris were recovered within weeks, the aircraft\u2019s flight recorder was not located until 2011 after deep-sea recovery missions.<\/p>\n
During the initial search efforts, rescue teams recovered 51 bodies, many of whom were still strapped into their seats. Several grieving families waited years before they could properly bury their loved ones.<\/p>\n
Investigators later concluded that the crash was caused by a combination of technical failures and pilot error. Faulty air-speed sensors reportedly provided incorrect readings to the cockpit crew during storm conditions. Confused by the malfunction, the pilots reacted incorrectly by lifting the nose of the aircraft upward instead of downward during the stall, causing the aircraft to lose lift and crash into the ocean.<\/p>\n
French investigators stated in 2012 that improved pilot training and the replacement of defective speed sensors became necessary following the tragedy.<\/p>\n
Relatives of victims gathered in court to hear Thursday\u2019s verdict. Many family members expressed relief that responsibility had finally been recognised after years of legal battles.<\/p>\n
Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 victims\u2019 association, who lost her son in the crash, welcomed the ruling and said the French justice system had finally acknowledged the suffering endured by the families.<\/p>\n
The court requested the maximum possible fine of \u20ac225,000 each against Air France and Airbus. However, several victims\u2019 relatives criticised the amount as insufficient considering the scale of the tragedy and the loss of 228 lives.<\/p>\n
During earlier court proceedings, prosecutors accused both companies of unacceptable behaviour and criticised their attempts to deny responsibility. They argued that the companies had failed to adequately address known technical concerns before the crash occurred.<\/p>\n
The disaster also raised global concerns about aviation safety standards and emergency response procedures for flights operating over remote ocean regions.<\/p>\n
Following the accident, international aviation authorities introduced stricter pilot training requirements related to high-altitude stalls and updated aircraft sensor systems to prevent similar incidents in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A French appeals court has found French airline Air France and aircraft manufacturer Airbus guilty of manslaughter over the tragic 2009 crash of Flight AF447, which killed all 228 people on board. The Paris Appeals Court ruled that both companies were \u201csolely and entirely responsible\u201d for the disaster, overturning an earlier 2023 court decision that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}