The European manufacturer Airbus and the airline Air France were acquitted of manslaughter charges. It was decided today by the criminal court of Paris. The case on which the French judges ruled is that of the sinking in the Atlantic Ocean, which took place in 2009, of the A-330 aircraft (registration F-GZCP) which took off from Rio de Janeiro and headed for Paris (flight AF447), which resulted in the deaths of all 228 people on board.

The decision aroused surprise and indignation among the relatives of the victims, who sat down on the benches of the large courtroom in Paris shortly after 1:30 pm. At the announcement of the suspects' release, some civil parties stood up to protest, before sitting down again, while the president continued to read the sentence and a heavy silence fell on the courtroom.

The final report of the investigation into the accident released by the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civil (BEA) pointed to pilot errors and technical failures as the main causes of the accident. But 14 years later, the criminal court in Paris exonerated Airbus and Air France, ruling that if "faults" had been established, a "certain causal link" with the accident "could have been demonstrated". Instead: no one guilty for the deaths of 216 passengers and 12 crew members, belonging to 33 nationalities, including 72 French and 58 Brazilians.

On the same topic see also the article published by AVIONEWS.