13 years after the events, the trial for the Air France Airbus A330 accident in which 228 people lost their lives opens this October 10 in Paris. Civilian parties hope to get answers from the two aviation giants, who continue to deny responsibility for the catastrophe.
After more than ten years of proceedings and the annulment of the court’s decision to dismiss the case, the time has come for Air France and Airbus to be tried for “manslaughter”. As of Monday, October 10, the two French and European aeronautical giants will appear before the Paris criminal court. They will face the families of the 228 passengers and crew members who died in the crash of flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.
It is an understatement to say that this extraordinary trial is highly anticipated by the civil parties, who have been trapped for a decade in a judicial labyrinth of expert and counter-expert reports requested by Airbus.
“We await this trial with impatience, but also with a certain fever,” confesses Danièle Lamy, president of the Entraide et Solidarité AF447 association, who lost her son in the tragedy.
“This will take us back to extremely painful times, but this trial is absolutely essential for the memory of the disappeared and for the families,” he added.
“The families of the victims want the company and the European manufacturer to be found guilty,” said Sébastien Busy, who represents several of the civil parties. So far no one has been held responsible and the two involved believe the accident was just the result of a series of misfortunes.
For the 476 civil parties, the drama that unfolded over the Atlantic Ocean is instead the result of a series of failures, negligence and oversights on the part of Airbus and Air France.
“The Judgment of the Dead
The investigations of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) had established in July 2012 the series of human and technical failures that led to the accident.
On May 31, 2009, the Airbus A330 chartered by Air France took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Paris. But off the coast of Brazil, the pilots of Flight AF447 were confronted with a frequent weather phenomenon known as “doldrums,” an area of unstable thunderstorms that causes strong turbulence and an icy atmosphere.
In these extreme conditions, frost forms on the Pitot probes, nickel tubes located at the front of the aircraft that continuously provide information about the aircraft’s speed. The pilots then receive erroneous data on the speed of the plane. Misled by the faulty probes, they believe the plane is losing altitude.
The flight conversations obtained from the discovery of the plane’s black boxes two years after the accident show the lack of understanding in the cabin. At that time, the pilots had no training to deal with this type of situation.
To regain altitude, they did what seemed most logical under the circumstances: they pulled back on the control column to lift the plane. The maneuver was fatal. The nose was too high and the speed too low. The plane reached 38,000 feet and lost lift in the air. Fall like a stone.
The “STALL” alarm sounded and in less than four minutes, the A330 crashed into the Atlantic.
During the trial, Airbus is expected to insist again on what it considers to be pilot error in order to exonerate itself from any responsibility. “The trial is held for the dead who cannot defend themselves,” said Jean-Claude Guidicelli, who represents the father of Clara Amado, a flight attendant who died in the crash. “But first in the hierarchy of responsibilities is Airbus, which should have changed the Pitot probes,” he added.
Airbus’ wait and see attitude
“For us, the main culprit is Airbus, which underestimated the risk related to the freezing of the probes and did not take into account the incidents of the year before the accident,” Maître Busy confirmed. “We have a feeling that Airbus waited and hoped that nothing would happen.”
A year before the Rio-Paris accident, some twenty events related to the freezing of probes had indeed been recorded and the manufacturer had been notified. These incidents were considered serious enough that some companies, such as Air Caraïbes and XL Airways, replaced the French Thalès probes with those of the American manufacturer Goodrich.
Lives were sacrificed at the altar of money and business
Why hasn’t Air France made a similar decision? According to the BEA, the company had expressed concern about these failures to Airbus.
“Air France preferred to stay with Thalès because it is a French company,” says Maître Guidicelli, who considers that “lives were sacrificed on the altar of money and business.” After the catastrophe, the model in question was replaced throughout the world.
During the nine weeks that the trial will last, one question will run through all the debates: could this accident have been avoided? The civil parties are convinced of this. Airbus would have been blinded by unlimited faith in the reliability of its A330. As for Air France, it should have better informed its crews about pitot probe malfunctions.
But after ten years of proceedings, some of the victims’ families doubt that they will get the answers they seek. “We run the risk of witnessing a new game of ping-pong between Air France and Airbus, who blame each other,” says Maître Guidicelli.
“Airbus would be honored to acknowledge its share of responsibility for the accident,” said Danièle Lamy, from the association Entraide et Solidarité AF447.
If the court finds that they were guilty, Air France and Airbus risk a fine of up to 225,000 euros. The trial will end on December 8.
This article was adapted from its French original
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