Air France and Airbus found guilty of corporate manslaughter over Rio-Paris plane crash that killed 228

Airbus and Air France have been found guilty of corporate manslaughter in the 2009 ⁠Rio-Paris ​plane crash ⁠that killed 228 passengers and ⁠crew in France's ​worst ⁠air disaster.

A Paris appeals court on Wednesday ordered both companies to pay a maximum fine of €225,000 each, marking a significant milestone in a 17-year legal battle.

Relatives of the passengers and crew who died when the Airbus A330 vanished in darkness during ​an Atlantic storm gathered to hear the verdict, following the eight-week trial.

In 2023, a lower court had cleared the two companies, both of which ​have repeatedly denied the charges.

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The maximum fines, amounting to just a few minutes of either company's ​revenue, have been widely dismissed as a token penalty. But family groups have said a conviction would represent ‌a recognition ⁠of their plight.

Flight AF447 vanished from radar screens on June 1, 2009, with people from 33 nationalities on board. The black boxes were recovered ​two years later after a ​deep-sea search.

In 2012, crash ⁠investigators found the plane's crew had pushed their jet into a stall, chopping lift from under the wings, after mishandling a problem to do ​with iced-up sensors.

Prosecutors, however, focused their attention on alleged failures inside ​both the planemaker ⁠and airline. Those included poor training and failing to follow up on earlier incidents.

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To prove manslaughter, prosecutors needed not only to establish that the companies were guilty of negligence but pull the threads together to ⁠demonstrate ​how this caused the crash.

Under the French system, last year's appeal ​proceedings involved a completely new trial with evidence reviewed from scratch. Any further appeals following Thursday's verdict will shift the ​focus from the AF447 cockpit to intricacies of law.

Flight 447 vanished from radar over the Atlantic Ocean between Brazil and Senegal with 216 passengers and 12 crew members aboard a few hours after taking off from Rio on 1 June 2009.

A subsequent investigation found that the plane’s nose pitched upward before its engine stalled at 38,000 feet, sending it into an uncontrollable, three-and-a-half-minute spiral into the ocean.

A massive search and rescue was launched involving the Brazilian military and French nuclear submarines, and a week later the first bodies of passengers were recovered floating on the ocean.

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