Paris appeals court convicts Air France and Airbus of manslaughter over 2009 AF447 crash that killed 228

The Paris Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that Air France and Airbus were "solely and entirely responsible" for the June 1, 2009 crash of Flight AF447, convicting both of involuntary manslaughter after an eight-week appeal trial that ran September to December 2025. Each was ordered to pay €225,000, the statutory maximum for corporate manslaughter — sums that several news outlets noted amount to a few minutes of either company's revenue. The verdict overturns a 2023 acquittal by a lower court that had ruled the evidence insufficient to establish criminal causation; Airbus said it would take the case to France's Court of Cassation.

The case turns on the pitot tubes that measure airspeed on the Airbus A330. Investigators found the tubes were blocked by ice crystals as the aircraft crossed a mid-Atlantic storm, generating conflicting speed readings, sounding cockpit alarms, and disengaging the autopilot. The pilots then pushed the jet into a climb that stalled the wings; the aircraft fell from 38,000 feet into the ocean roughly 700 miles off the coast of South America. There were 216 passengers and 12 crew aboard. There were no survivors.

The court found that Airbus had underestimated the seriousness of repeated pitot probe failures and had failed to properly warn the crews of operating airlines. Air France was found to have failed to provide pilot training tailored to high-altitude pitot-tube icing emergencies and to have failed to adequately inform flight crews. Prosecutor Rodolphe Juy-Birmann told the court last November that the companies had offered "not a single word of sincere comfort" across a 17-year legal process: "One word sums up this whole circus — indecency." Pascal Weil, representing Air France, had told the court that the airline "had the means to conduct high-altitude training, but we did not do so because we sincerely believed it was unnecessary." Christophe Cail, for Airbus, said the manufacturer's stated goal was "zero accidents."

The aircraft's black boxes were recovered in 2011, two years after the crash, following a deep-sea search of roughly 10,000 sq km of ocean floor. The 228 victims came from 33 countries, including 72 French and 58 Brazilian nationals, 26 Germans, five Britons, three Irish women — doctors Eithne Walls of County Down, Jane Deasy of County Dublin and Aisling Butler of County Tipperary — two Americans, and 11-year-old Alexander Bjoroy of Bristol, returning home through Paris after a half-term in Brazil. Brazilian prince Pedro Luiz de Orleans e Bragança died at 26. Air France paid €17,500 per victim to families in 2009.

Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 victims' association, who lost her son in the crash, said the justice system was "at last, taking into account the pain of the families faced with a collective tragedy of unbearable brutality." Family groups have called the conviction itself, rather than the financial penalty, the recognition they wanted; Airbus's planned appeal to France's Court of Cassation will now turn the case to points of law rather than to the cockpit, potentially extending the litigation for years more.