It is the deadliest disaster in the history of Air France. More than 13 years after the crash that killed 228 people in the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, the trial of flight AF447 Rio-Paris opens in France on Monday October 10. The judges must determine the responsibility of Airbus and Air France, which contest any criminal fault. Franceinfo presents the stakes of the hearings of this trial, scheduled until December 8.
What is reproached to Airbus and Air France?
The two companies, which incur a fine of 225,000 euros, are tried for “involuntary homicides”. The investigations showed that the pilots, caught in a storm, were disoriented by the icing of the Pitot speed probes. They were unable to recover from the aircraft stall, which took place in less than five minutes, as this video recounts.
At the end of the investigation, the courts considered that there were sufficient charges against Air France, for having “abstained from implementing appropriate training” and “the information of the crews which was essential” against the icing of the probes. This failure would have “prevented the pilots from reacting as they should”. The company disputes this reading and intends to plead for release, considering that it has “no criminal fault at the origin of the accident”.
>> Rio-Paris crash: “We are going to face two major entities of the French economy, Airbus and Air France”, confides the mother of a victim
For its part, Airbus is fired for having “underestimated the seriousness of probe failures”. Incidents on Pitot probes had multiplied in the months preceding the accident. The aircraft manufacturer would not have taken “all the necessary provisions to urgently inform the crews of the operating companies and contribute to training them effectively”. Here too, the company disputes any criminal wrongdoing.
Why is this trial coming so late?
This meeting in front of the judges is the culmination of a long technical and legal journey. If the first debris, as well as bodies, were found in the days following the crash, the wreckage was not located until two years later, in April 2011, 3,900 m from a bottom surrounded by underwater high reliefs. “Two years of waiting, with twists and turns, bad surprises, bad information”remembers Corinne Soulas, the mother of a missing person, whose body was never found.
It was only during a fourth phase of research that the black boxes could be fished out, confirming the problem of icing in the speed probes. After a succession of expert reports, the investigating judges dismissed the case on August 29, 2019. Outraged, the relatives of the victims and the pilots’ unions appealed, like the prosecution.
>> Rio-Paris crash: the dismissal ordered by the judges is experienced by the families “as a real arm of honor”
On May 12, 2021, the investigating chamber finally ordered the referral of the two companies to a criminal court. If he had the feeling of being “The earthen pot against the iron pot” against Air France and Airbus, the vice-president of the association of relatives of victims Entraide et Solidarité AF447, Philippe Linguet, is pleased that the trial is taking place, after “thirteen years of ups and downs”. He sees a message of hope there: “Beat you.”
What do civil parties expect?
After a “legal fight” and an instruction “chaotic”, “we expect this trial to be the trial of Airbus and Air France”, insists the president of Entraide et Solidarité AF447, Danièle Lamy. She fears that the trial will become “that of the pilots”killed in the accident, on whom the defendants could seek to impose responsibility for the crash.
“We are waiting for an impartial, exemplary trial, so that this does not happen again and that, through this trial, the two defendants put air safety at the center of their concerns rather than just profitability”insists Danièle Lamy.
The plane was carrying people of 33 different nationalities, including 72 French, out of a total of 216 passengers and 12 crew members. Since the tragedy, 476 relatives have joined as civil parties. “It’s a trial that will be very technical”warns the lawyer for Mutual Aid and Solidarity Alain Jakubowicz.
“Our concern too is to restore this human dimension. (…) These are men, women, children, who died, who could be you or me.”
Alain Jakubowicz, lawyer for an association of relatives of victimsat AFP
For Ophélie Toulliou, sister of a missing person, the objective “is to pay homage to them, that the truth be known, that the condemnations, if they are deserved, fall”.