Major airline Air France and aircraft manufacturer Airbus have been found guilty of manslaughter over the devastating Flight AF447 crash that killed all 228 people onboard in one of the deadliest disasters in aviation history.
The ruling was delivered by the Paris Appeals Court on Thursday, overturning an earlier decision made in 2023 that had cleared both companies of criminal responsibility.
The tragedy occurred on June 1, 2009, when the Airbus A330 travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean during a violent tropical storm.
Among those killed were five British nationals and three young Irish doctors returning from a holiday in Brazil.
The aircraft plunged around 38,000 feet into the ocean after entering a stall mid-flight, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew members onboard.
Investigators later concluded that the plane’s speed sensors, known as Pitot tubes, malfunctioned after freezing over during the storm, causing confusion inside the cockpit.
Recorded cockpit conversations revealed a terrifying final few minutes as the pilots struggled desperately to regain control of the aircraft.
At the time of the emergency, captain Marc Dubois, 58, and co-pilot David Robert, 37, were reportedly resting, leaving junior pilot Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, alone at the controls when the aircraft encountered severe turbulence.
Black box recordings captured moments of panic inside the cockpit.
“Damn it, I don’t have control of the plane at all!” one pilot shouted.
Moments later, another voice could be heard yelling: “We’re going to crash… This can’t be happening!”
Seconds later, the cockpit recording ended.
French investigators determined the pilots mistakenly lifted the nose of the aircraft upward during the stall instead of pointing it downward — a fatal error that caused the plane to lose altitude rapidly before crashing into the sea at around 11,000 feet per minute.
The wreckage of Flight AF447 was not discovered until two years later following an enormous underwater search operation covering nearly 3,860 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean.
Prosecutors accused Air France of failing to provide adequate pilot training on handling technical failures involving the aircraft’s speed monitoring system.
The court ruled that both Air France and Airbus were “solely and entirely responsible” for the disaster.
Despite the guilty verdict, the companies were each fined only £195,000 (approximately RM1.2 million), the maximum penalty allowed under French civil law.
Some relatives of the victims reportedly said the punishment was far too small considering the scale of the tragedy and the number of lives lost.
Among the victims were Scottish oil worker Graham Gardner, engineer Arthur Coakley from North Yorkshire, 11-year-old boarding school student Alexander Bjoroy and British public relations executive Neil Warrior.
The three Irish doctors onboard had been returning home after spending two weeks in Brazil.
Since the crash, Air France is said to have strengthened pilot training procedures involving technical malfunctions and emergency stall recovery situations.
Both Air France and Airbus had repeatedly denied wrongdoing throughout the trial, and further appeals remain possible due to the reputational impact of the verdict.
