Air France Flight 447 Disaster: New Trial Begins 16 Years After Fatal Atlantic Crash

Flight AF447, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the loss of all 228 lives aboard.

Paris authorities have scheduled a new appeals trial beginning Monday for both Air France and Airbus, exactly 16 years after the catastrophic crash of the A330 jetliner.

In 2023, a lower French court had acquitted both corporations of corporate manslaughter charges following an unprecedented public trial investigating the AF447 disaster that occurred while the aircraft was traveling from Brazil to France on June 1, 2009.

French investigators, after conducting a challenging two-year search for the aircraft's black boxes, determined that the pilots incorrectly responded to a temporary loss of airspeed data caused by iced-up sensors, subsequently pushing the aircraft into an aerodynamic stall from which they failed to recover despite system alerts.

The initial trial, however, revealed concerning communications between Air France and Airbus regarding increasing issues with the speed sensors, known as "pitot probes," responsible for generating critical airspeed readings.

Following nine weeks of testimony, a Paris judge identified four negligent actions by Airbus and one by Air France but concluded that these did not establish a definitive causal link to the accident under French criminal law standards.

Prosecutors have appealed this verdict and requested a new two-month trial expected to thoroughly examine all evidence rather than focusing solely on legal technicalities.

The AF447 incident remains one of aviation's most extensively analyzed disasters and has prompted numerous technical improvements and training protocol changes throughout the industry.

The prosecution contends that Airbus responded inadequately to the increasing frequency of airspeed measurement incidents, while Air France failed to provide sufficient pilot training for such scenarios.

Both companies have consistently maintained their innocence of any criminal wrongdoing, though the previous trial exposed significant disagreements between these two prominent French corporations regarding the respective roles of human error versus equipment failure in France's worst aviation disaster.

While the maximum penalty for corporate manslaughter amounts to only 225,000 euros, prosecutors believe a new trial will provide emotional closure for victims' families, who protested the previous verdict and vowed to continue their pursuit of criminal liability.

The chief executives of both Airbus and Air France (a division of Franco-Dutch Air France-KLM) are scheduled to deliver statements during Monday's opening hearing, beginning at 1:30 p.m. local time (1130 GMT).