After a 17-year-long legal battle, Airbus and Air France have been found guilty of 'corporate manslaughter' for a 2009 plane crash that killed 228 people. The Paris Appeals court ordered both companies to pay the maximum fine of €225,000 each.
The plane, an Airbus A330, vanished from radar during a storm on June 1, 2009, while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The crash was the deadliest in French aviation history.
The final report by the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) found that a succession of events led to the crash, including inconsistency between speeds due to icing of the pilot tubes, inappropriate control inputs by the crew, and failure to follow procedure.
The BEA report also indicated that the lack of proper training for the crew and pilots may have been a major factor in the crash. The design of the Airbus cockpit may have also contributed to the accident, as the flight controls are not mechanically linked between the two pilot seats.
The conviction comes as a cathartic moment for relatives of the victims, but further appeals from the companies may be filed, dragging out the process for another few years.
