A French court on Monday acquitted the airline Air France and the manufacturer Airbus of manslaughter charges for the 2009 crash of Flight 447 between Rio de Janeiro and Paris.
The incident killed 228 people and prompted changes in air safety measures.
When the judges read the decision, sobs were heard among the victims’ families present in the courtroom. The acquittal was a devastating defeat for the families, who fought 13 years to bring the case to trial.
The three-judge court concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a direct connection between the companies’ decisions and the accident. The official investigation concluded that several factors contributed to the crash, including pilot error and the freezing of the aircraft’s external sensors.
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The two-month trial left the families outraged and disappointed. Even the state prosecutor’s office asked for an unusual acquittal, noting that insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the companies had been found.
The prosecution attributed most of the responsibility to the pilots, who died in the crash. Airbus lawyers also blamed the pilots, while Air France said the cause of the crash will never be known exactly.
Airbus and Air France faced fines of up to 225,000 euros ($219,000) each if convicted. The sum would have been just a fraction of their annual revenues, but a conviction of two major firms would have had consequences throughout the aviation industry.
Although the court found no criminal wrongdoing by the companies, the judges said Airbus and Air France had civil liability for what happened and ordered them to compensate the victims’ families. It did not specify a specific figure, although it set hearings in September to determine it.
Air France has already compensated the families of the deceased, who came from 33 countries, AP reported.
Recall that the Airbus A330-200 aircraft disappeared from radar in the middle of a storm over the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board. It took two years to find the plane and its recording devices at the bottom of the ocean, more than 4,000 meters deep.
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Plataforma Informativa de Aviación Comercial con 13 años de trayectoria.