A French court on Wednesday convicted Yemen's national airline of involuntary homicide and injuries linked to a 2009 plane crash that killed nearly everyone onboard except a 12-year-old girl who miraculously survived.
The Yemenia Airways Airbus A310-300 that had left Yemen with 153 people on board , including 66 French nationals, crashed into the sea off the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros as it approached in bad weather.
Yemenia Airways was sentenced to the maximum fine of 225,000 euros ($225,000) and ordered to pay one million euros to two victims' associations for damages and costs.
However , executives of the carrier did not appear in the hearings , blaming the ongoing civil war in their country.
Flight Yemenia 626 was on approach to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros islands that lie between Mozambique and Madagascar, on June 29, 2009, after departing from the airport in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
Among the 142 passengers and 11 crew were 66 French citizens heading to France's overseas territory of Mayotte, part of the Comoros archipelago.
Just before 11:00 pm , the Airbus A310 aircraft plunged into the Indian Ocean with its engines running at full throttle during strong winds in the Indian Ocean, around 15 kilometres off the Comorian coast on 30 June, killing everyone on board except Bahia Bakari , then just 12 years old.
French aviation investigators ruled that the accident was not caused by a "technical problem or explosion" and blamed a series of pilot errors, which stalled the engines, leading to them losing control.
Company was accused of pilot training programmes "riddled with gaps" and of continuing to fly to Moroni at night despite several non-functioning landing lights.
Even though the carrier had complied with all regulations, there were "two cases of carelessness directly linked to the accident," the presiding judge said in reading out the verdict.
She faulted the continued night flights to Moroni despite the light outages, and the assignment of a co-pilot with "weak spots" in his training.
"The negligences committed demonstrate an inadequate culture of security and responsibility at the airline," she said.
The sole survivor of the crash, Bahia Bakari, was en route from Paris to attend a wedding in the Comoros with her mother, who perished in the crash.
After blacking out during the aircraft's impact with the Ocean, she found herself surrounded by wreckage in the sea, where she drifted for 12 hours before being rescued.
Now 25, Bakari gave a powerful testimony in a packed Paris courtroom in May, earning praise for her bravery from judges and lawyers.
"It's a relief to hear the judiciary say the airline is guilty," Bakari told journalists at the Paris courthouse.
"It's not going to change my story, this is something that has impacted me and will impact me my entire life, but it's a relief because I had never said openly that I felt the airline was guilty," she said.
She also recounted her experiences during the trial last May and June, and has also written a book titled "I'm Bahia, the Miracle Girl".
Around 560 people had joined the suit as plaintiffs, many of them from the region around Marseille in southern France, home to many of the victims.
Yemenia has been ordered to pay restitution before, in response to different lawsuits surrounding the 2009 crash, but victims have said it has been a slow process to get their remuneration.
However , the carrier's lawyers have indicated that they would appeal the decision.
