Air France, Airbus Cleared Of Involuntary Manslaughter Over 2009 Crash

A Paris court on Monday declared Air France and Airbus not guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 disaster of flight 447, which resulted in the deaths of 228 people.

Rendering its verdict, the court stated that even if mistakes had been made, “no certain causal link” could be established between them and the disaster.

According to the Guardian, a foreign news outlet, the Airbus A330 was travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a thunderstorm. Lawyers for passengers’ families had battled for years to address what they said were failings leading to the worst aviation disaster in Air France’s history.

The decision came after a two-month trial that ended with the public prosecutors’ office recommending that both businesses be cleared since it was impossible to establish their guilt.

According to a report by France’s air investigation authority, the breakdown of the Airbus’s speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, which froze up during a storm over the Atlantic, was found to have already triggered a disastrous chain of events, according to the investigation, the Air France pilots lacked the training necessary to handle this predicament.