On Wednesday, a Paris court ruled that Airbus along with Air France will stand trial on charges of 'involuntary manslaughter' over the 2009 crash of flight Air France AF447, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board, the deadliest crash in the airline’s history.
The ruling follows the prosecutor’s recommendation that the Paris court overturns a previous judicial decision to drop the investigation against the airline and aircraft manufacturer.
Initially, it was only Air France to stand trial on manslaughter charges but the general prosecutor’s office supported charging both Air France and Airbus.
“It’s a huge satisfaction to feel that we have finally been heard by the courts,” Daniele Lamy, president of an association of victims’ families, stated following the announcement of the court ruling.
The devlopement comes 11 years after Air France Flight 447 entered an aerodynamic stall before crashing into the Atlantic Ocean at 02:14 UTC on 1 June 2009, while carrying out a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Charles de Gaulle, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew members.
The incident was the deadliest crash in Air France’s history and the worst aviation accident for an Airbus A330.
The Brazilian Navy recovered the first major wreckage, and two bodies, from the sea within five days of the accident, but the initial investigation by France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) was hampered because the aircraft's Flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years later.
After an investigation took place, a report stated that pilot errors and faulty speed-monitoring equipment had been responsible for the accident.
Following the report’s release, prosecutors alleged that Air France was indirectly responsible for the incident as it provided insufficient training on how pilots should respond if there was a malfunction during a flight, resulting in an incorrect reaction from the pilots.
Lawyers working on behalf of Airbus announced that they would lodge an appeal of the decision to take the company to trial.
