On June 1, 2009, a 228-seater plane crashed into the Atlantic on the Rio-Paris route. Thirteen years later, the manufacturer Airbus and the airline Air France have responded to the French court as of this Monday (10).
The hearing begins at 13:30 (8:30 EDT) at the Paris Court of Corrections and will last until 8 December. The procedure is considered “essential” for global air transport as well as for the European manufacturer, the French company and the victims’ families.
Flight AF447 between Rio de Janeiro and Paris crashed in the Atlantic at midnight, 3 hours and 45 minutes after takeoff, killing 216 passengers and 12 crew members. It was the deadliest disaster in Air France history.
The first wreckage and bodies were found in the days that followed, but the hull was only found two years later, on April 2, 2011, at a depth of 3,900 meters, surrounded by submarine high reliefs, in the fourth stage. call. .
Black boxes found a month later confirmed that pilots, disoriented by the freezing of Pitot speed probes in an intertropical convergence zone near the equator, were unable to recover the crashed plane’s lift (stall) in less time. five minutes..
After protracted expert reviews, the investigating judges closed the case on August 29, 2019. Furious, the families of the victims and the pilot’s union appealed, and on May 12, 2021, the Investigation Department decided on the manslaughter case. two companies.
The victims’ families welcome the trial with mixed feelings.
“I don’t expect anything from this process,” Nelson Faria Marinho, president of the Brazilian victims’ association of flight AF447, told AFP. This 79-year-old man won’t be traveling to Paris for lack of funds.
His counterpart, Danièle Lamy, from the victims’ families association Entraide et Solidarité AF447, hopes this process will be “Airbus and Air France’s decision, not the pilots’ decision,” after a “legal battle”. . . .
We expect an impartial and exemplary trial so that this does not happen again, and through this case, the two defendants put not only profitability but also air safety at the center of their concerns.”
For the Air France group’s (SPAF) pilots association, “it is important that a court can hear all parties and decide on the different responsibilities in a public process where the importance of flight safety will be emphasized”.
According to a company statement, Air France “keeps the memory of the victims of this terrible accident and expresses its deepest solidarity with all their loved ones”.
The company said it “will continue to demonstrate that it did not commit any crime at the origin of the accident.”
European manufacturer Airbus, which declined to comment before the trial, also denies any criminal charges.
The aircraft, registered F-GZCP, which entered service four years ago, was carrying passengers of 33 different nationalities, including, among others, 61 French, 58 Brazilians and 28 Germans, as well as Italians (9), Spaniards (2) and an Argentine.
The civilian part consists of a total of 476 family members. Five days will be reserved for those who wish to testify.
The court will have to determine whether Airbus and Air France, which were fined 225,000 euros (about $220,000), made a mistake regarding the tragedy.
source: Noticias
