Air France and Airbus were found guilty of manslaughter by a Paris appeals court on Thursday over the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, which killed all 228 people on board after the aircraft plunged into the Atlantic Ocean during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.The verdict came after an eight-week trial into one of France’s deadliest aviation disasters. The court ruled that the two companies bore responsibility for the crash, overturning an earlier 2023 decision that had cleared them of criminal liability.
Both Air France and Airbus were fined €225,000 each, the maximum penalty allowed under French law for this type of offence. However, several relatives of the victims said the punishment was too lenient considering the scale of the tragedy.
