MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Friday, May 22nd 2026 - 11:48 UTC
Flight AF447, an Airbus A330-200 carrying twelve crew members and 216 passengers, stalled during a storm in the middle of the ocean and plunged from an altitude of 11,580 meters
The Paris Court of Appeals on Thursday found Air France and Airbus guilty of manslaughter in connection with the crash of flight AF447, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009 on the Rio de Janeiro–Paris route with a death toll of 228 people. The ruling overturns the April 2023 decision in which both companies had been acquitted, and finds the airline and the manufacturer “solely and entirely responsible” for the disaster, according to the BBC news agency. Both Air France and Airbus rejected the charges and announced they would appeal.
The conviction came after an eight-week trial and represents one of the most significant judicial outcomes in the recent history of European aviation. The court imposed on each company the maximum fine provided for under French law, 225,000 euros (around USD 261,000), a sum that some families of the victims described as symbolic. Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 victims' association and the mother of one of the deceased, said justice was “at last taking into account the pain of the families faced with a collective tragedy of unbearable brutality.”
