French court opens new trial on AF447 air disaster 16 years on

A French appeals court will begin a new trial on Monday of Air France and Airbus, 16 years after a jetliner plunged into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board.

A lower French court cleared both companies of corporate manslaughter in 2023 following a historic public trial over the disappearance of flight AF447 while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.

After a two-year search for the A330's black boxes, French investigators found pilots had mishandled the temporary loss of data from iced-up speed sensors and pushed the jet into an aerodynamic stall or free fall, without responding to alerts.

But the trial more than a decade later also shed light on discussions between Air France and Airbus about growing problems with the sensors or “pitot probes” that generate speed readings.

Following nine weeks of evidence, a Paris judge listed four acts of negligence by Airbus and one by Air France but found these were not enough under French criminal law to establish a definitive link to the loss of the jet during a midnight storm.

Prosecutors appealed the verdict and called for a new two-month trial that is expected to involve a full-scale airing of evidence, rather than limiting itself to purely legal matters.

The AF447 disaster has been among the most widely debated in aviation and led to a number of technical and training changes.

Prosecutors have argued that Airbus reacted too slowly to the rising number of speed incidents and that the airline failed to do enough to ensure pilots were adequately trained.

Both companies have consistently denied any criminal wrongdoing, but the earlier trial exposed bitter divisions between two of France's flagship companies over the relative roles of pilot and sensor in the country's worst air disaster.

The maximum fine for corporate manslaughter is just 225,000 euros (around $260,000) but prosecutors believe a new trial will help to provide a cathartic effect for families, who protested the earlier verdict and pledged to keep fighting to establish criminal liability.

Chief executives of Airbus and Air France, part of Franco-Dutch Air France-KLM, are expected to make statements during the opening hearing, which starts at 1:30 p.m. local time (1130 GMT) on Monday.