Air France and Airbus found guilty of corporate manslaughter

Air France Airbus A330-203 F-GZCP at Charles de Gaulle Airport 2008

Photo Credit: Hansueli Krapf (Simisa)

Air France and Airbus found guilty of corporate manslaughter

After 17 years and five major judicial proceedings, the families of Air France Flight 447’s victims have finally secured a criminal conviction.

On 21 May 2026, the Paris Court of Appeal found the airline and aircraft manufacturer “solely and entirely responsible” for the crash of Flight AF447, which was travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. The passenger jet stalled during a storm and fell from a height of 38,000 feet, killing all 228 people on board — 216 passengers and 12 crew members — making it the deadliest incident in French aviation history.

Both companies have repeatedly denied all charges and say they will lodge an appeal with the Court of Cassation, France’s highest court. The Court of Cassation does not retry cases; it only reviews whether the law was correctly applied by the lower courts.

The ruling reverses an April 2023 verdict that had cleared both companies, and follows an eight-week retrial. The court ordered Airbus and Air France to each pay the maximum available fine of €225,000 (about RM1.048 million). Some victims’ families criticised the amount as a token penalty, while others saw the conviction itself — two years after the earlier acquittal — as a long-awaited chance at justice.

The reaction among victims’ families was one of relief and vindication rather than celebration. After waiting 17 years, many said the verdict finally acknowledged that the companies bore criminal responsibility for the tragedy.

In their defence, Airbus argued, among other things, that pilot handling — not aircraft design — was the immediate cause of the crash, while Air France argued that the pilots’ reactions were unforeseeable.

The Paris Court of Appeal rejected both arguments. It concluded that Airbus had known for years that the Thales AA pitot probes were susceptible to ice-crystal blockage and had not acted quickly enough to eliminate the risk. It further found that Air France had failed to adequately prepare pilots for high-altitude unreliable-airspeed events and the possibility of a sustained stall. The court ruled that these failures were a substantial contributing cause of the accident and convicted both companies of corporate manslaughter.

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