Airbus and Air France found guilty of manslaughter in 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash

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.

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.

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.