Rio-Paris crash in 2009: no conviction required against Airbus and Air France
ANo “failure” or “negligence” in “direct connection” with the disaster: the prosecution did not request Wednesday the condemnation of Airbus and Air France in the trial of the Rio-Paris crash, in which 228 people found death on June 1, 2009, a position that angered civil parties.
The guilt of the companies “seems impossible to settle. We know that this position will probably be very inaudible for the civil parties, but we are not in a position to request the condemnation of Air France and Airbus”, concluded the prosecutor. .
At these words, angry applause was heard in the packed courtroom of the Paris Criminal Court. “I’m ashamed to be French!”, “What is the use of justice?”, Launched some civil parties before leaving the room.
These words were pronounced at the end of a two-voice indictment lasting almost five and a half hours, led by a preamble qualifying the accident of flight AF447, the most serious in the history of Air France, of “incomparable tragedy “.
“This tragic accident is above all a human tragedy which has forever upset the relatives of the victims”, whose “suffering has constantly been reactivated during these thirteen years”, a “delay much too long”, underlined the prosecutor Marie Dufourc.
“Representing society in such a trial means preserving social order (and) remembering that respect for the life of human persons does not admit of any compromise. Nevertheless, it is not supporting the prosecution only if the offenses are characterized” , she warned.
“No criminal fault”
On June 1, 2009, flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris was crossing the stormy weather zone of the “doldrums” when the Pitot anemometric probes, which measure the speed of the aircraft outside the aircraft, frosted.
Destabilized by the consequences of this failure, the two co-pilots, soon joined by the captain who was off duty, failed to regain control of the plane, which hit the ocean 4 minutes and 23 seconds later. .
This is the umpteenth twist in a long process. In 2019, a dismissal was pronounced by the investigating judges, before the court of appeal ordered a trial in 2021.
But on Wednesday, the prosecution revealed that the incriminating evidence collected by the indictment was unfounded: it concluded that no “criminal fault” was established.
The prosecution revealed that at the time the companies had not underestimated the seriousness of the failures of Pitot probes, which had multiplied in the months of the accident. In the reports of these previous incidents, “there had never been an escape and total loss of control of the plane”, argued in particular the prosecutor Pierre Arnaudin.
Civil parties “shocked”
Subsequently, the prosecutors detailed why, according to them, neither Airbus nor Air France had not committed more “wrongful negligence” on the training and information of the pilots about this breakdown and its consequences.
“Airbus and Air France could be justified in believing at the material time that these training and procedures were sufficient to manage the situation of AF447”, summarized the prosecutor.
He then addressed the civil parties. “We have heard the unbearable pain of the loss of your loved ones, your desire for punishment, for the guilty to be named”.
“Our duty as public prosecutors is to attribute ourselves (…) to the law, without it being able to be influenced by the expectations of one or other of the parties, even if they are felt to be legitimate”, continued the magistrate.
At the end of the hearing, relatives of the victims and their lawyers said they were “shocked”, “outraged” by these requisitions.
“Forty-six years at the helm, this is the first time that I have seen a prosecutor plead, he pleaded in defense of Airbus and Air France, the prosecution is dishonored today”, pinged Me Alain Jakubowicz.
“A shame”, “I don’t understand, it’s completely up to the pilots and completely at the expense of the major European and national companies”, reacted Sylvie Robert, sister of David Robert, co-pilot on flight AF447.
The Air France defense began to plead at the end of the afternoon.
07/12/2022 18:19:49 – Paris (AFP) – © 2022 AFP