‘It’s about the truth’

Thirteen years later, the lawsuit began in Paris for the crash of an Air France plane in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. At the start of the case it was noisy. Some relatives of the 228 victims protested loudly when the directors of the airline and aircraft manufacturer Airbus expressed their condolences.

This happened after the names of the victims of the plane crash were read in court. Flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went missing from radar overnight during a storm. Both Air France and Airbus say they are not responsible for the accident.

The largest wreck of the Airbus A330 was found only after two years, as were the black boxes. They revealed how the cockpit had behaved during the storm. It was found that the pilots reacted incorrectly to the temporary lack of data caused by the plane’s frozen speed sensors and inadvertently pushed the plane into free fall.

The aircraft manufacturer Airbus has since blamed the pilots for the accident. Air France takes a different reading, arguing that the plane’s warnings confused pilots and that the fault lies with the plane’s manufacturer. If one of the companies is convicted by a court of manslaughter, they risk a fine of up to 225,000 euros.

Relatives think the amount is too low. “But that’s not our concern,” one of their lawyers said today. “We want the truth. We want to make sure that lessons are drawn from this type of catastrophe. This case is about restoring humanity.”

There has been a lot of talk about the cause in recent years. The case had previously been dismissed by a lower court. Last year, a judge ruled that the two companies should still go to trial for the incident. In the meantime, civil cases have followed, in which some relatives have been compensated.