The families of three Irish doctors who died in the 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash are “delighted” with the news that a Paris appeals court found Airbus and Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter.
The ruling on Wednesday found the two companies responsible for the plane crash which killed 228 passengers and crew, including three Irish women.
Dr Aisling Butler (26), from Roscrea, Co Tipperary; Dr Jane Deasy (27), from Dublin; and Dr Eithne Walls (28), from Co Down, were returning from a holiday in Brazil when they died in the crash on June 1st, 2009.
John Butler, the father of Aisling Butler, said he was “delighted” that the airline and manufacturer were held responsible for the crash.
Butler, a member of Association Entraide et Solidarité AF447 - an association of 384 family members from 12 countries - said the outcome of the appeal was what the families had wanted.
“I am delighted that justice has been done,” Butler told The Irish Times on Thursday. “Air France and Airbus have been held responsible and convicted; it is what we wanted.”
The verdict on France’s worst air disaster is the latest milestone in a legal marathon involving two of the country’s most emblematic companies and relatives of the mainly French, Brazilian and German victims.
Relatives of some of the 228 passengers and crew who died when the Airbus A330 vanished in darkness during an Atlantic storm gathered to hear the verdict after their 17-year legal battle to pinpoint blame for France’s worst air disaster.
The court ordered the companies to pay the maximum fine for corporate manslaughter, €225,000 ($261,720) each, following the request of prosecutors during the eight-week trial.
In 2023 a lower court had cleared the two companies, both of which have repeatedly denied the charges.
The maximum fines, amounting to just a few minutes of either company’s revenue, have been widely dismissed as a token penalty. But family groups have said a conviction would represent a recognition of their plight.
French lawyers have predicted further appeals to the country’s highest court, potentially dragging the process out for years more and prolonging the ordeal for relatives.
Flight AF447 vanished from radar screens with people from 33 nationalities on board. The black boxes were recovered two years later after a deep-sea search.
In 2012 BEA crash investigators found the crew had pushed their jet into a stall, chopping lift from under the wings, after mishandling a problem with iced-up sensors.
Prosecutors, however, focused their attention on alleged failures inside the plane maker and airline. Those included poor training and failing to follow up on earlier incidents.
To prove manslaughter, prosecutors needed not only to establish that the companies were guilty of negligence but pull the threads together to demonstrate how this caused the crash.
Under the French system, last year’s appeal proceedings involved a new trial with evidence reviewed from scratch. Any further appeals following Thursday’s verdict will shift the focus from the AF447 cockpit to intricacies of law.
Airbus said on Thursday it would appeal to France’s highest court after a Paris appeals court found the planemaker guilty of corporate manslaughter over the 2009 Air France Flight AF447 disaster that killed 228 people.
The company said the ruling contradicted submissions by prosecutors and earlier judicial findings, including a 2023 acquittal.– Additional reporting Reuters
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