A Paris appeals court has found Air France and Airbus guilty of involuntary manslaughter over the 2009 crash of flight AF447, which killed all 228 people on board in the worst disaster in French aviation history.
The Paris Court of Appeal ruled today that the airline and the European aerospace manufacturer were “solely and entirely responsible for the crash of flight AF447”, ordering each company to pay €225,000 — the maximum fine under French law for corporate manslaughter.
The penalties are largely symbolic, though the judgment represents serious reputational damage for both companies.
On June 1, 2009, the Airbus A330 was cruising over the Atlantic on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when the pilots lost control and the aircraft plunged into the ocean.
There were no survivors among the 216 passengers and 12 crew, including 72 French and 58 Brazilian nationals.
Air France and Airbus had both denied criminal liability and blamed pilot error. A lower court acquitted them in 2023, a verdict that outraged the victims’ families.
Although prosecutors had initially asked for the charges to be dropped, they later lodged the appeal in order to allow “the full potential of the legal appeals procedure” to play out. The eight-week appeal trial ran between September and December 2025.
In November, prosecutor Rodolphe Juy-Birmann lambasted the companies’ conduct in court.
“Nothing has come of it — not a single word of sincere comfort,” he said. “It’s a rock-solid defence. One word sums up this whole circus: indecency.”
Lawyers for the families argued that both firms had been aware of problems with the pitot tubes used to measure flight speed, and that the pilots had not been trained to handle such a high-altitude emergency.
The court heard how a malfunction of the tubes, which became blocked with ice crystals during a mid-Atlantic storm, caused alarms to sound in the cockpit and the autopilot to disengage.
Experts told the trial that after the instrument failed, the pilots put the aircraft into a climb that caused it to stall and crash into the ocean.
The companies were found guilty on all counts. The court criticised Airbus for underestimating the seriousness of problems with the sensors and for failing to properly inform crews at airlines operating the A330.
Air France was found guilty of failing to provide pilot training tailored to situations involving icing of pitot tubes and of failing to adequately inform flight crews.
Christophe Cail, who represented Airbus in court, said in October that the company’s goal was “zero accidents”.
“Even the smallest accident is a failure for our entire community,” he said.
Pascal Weil, who represented Air France, said the carrier “had the means to conduct high-altitude training, but we did not do so because we sincerely believed it was unnecessary”.
