Lhe anger of the civil parties was palpable on Wednesday, December 7, after the announcement of the prosecution’s requisitions in the Rio-Paris crash trial. Thirteen years after the tragedy, in which 228 people died, the prosecution did not require the conviction of Airbus or Air France. According to him, there was no “failure” or “negligence” in “direct connection” with the disaster. The guilt of companies “seems to us impossible to demonstrate. We know that this position will most likely be inaudible to the civil parties, but we are not in a position to request the condemnation of Air France and Airbus”, thus concluded the prosecutor Pierre Arnaudin.
At these words, angry applause was heard in the packed courtroom of the Paris Criminal Court. “I’m ashamed to be French!” », « What is the use of justice? “Launched some civil parties before leaving the room.
These words were pronounced at the end of a two-voice indictment lasting nearly five and a half hours, beginning with a preamble describing the accident of flight AF447, the most serious in the history of Air France, as “incomparable tragedy “. “This tragic accident is above all a human tragedy which has forever upset the relatives of the victims”, whose “suffering has constantly been reactivated during these thirteen years”, a “time that is much too long”, underlined the prosecutor Marie Dufourc. “Representing society in such a trial means preserving social order (and) remembering that respect for the lives of human beings does not admit of any compromise. Nevertheless, it is only to support the prosecution if the offenses are characterized, ”she warned.
“No criminal fault”
On June 1, 2009, flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris was crossing the stormy Doldrums weather zone when the Pitot anemometer probes, which measure the aircraft’s speed outside the aircraft, iced over. . Destabilized by the consequences of this failure, the two co-pilots, soon joined by the captain who was off duty, failed to regain control of the plane, which hit the ocean 4 minutes and 23 seconds later. .
This is the umpteenth twist in a long process. In 2019, a dismissal had been pronounced by the investigating judges, before the court of appeal ordered a trial in 2021. But on Wednesday December 7, the prosecution considered that the incriminating evidence gathered by the indictment were unfounded: he concluded that no “criminal fault” had been established. The public prosecutor considered that at the time, the companies had not underestimated the seriousness of the failures of Pitot probes, which had multiplied in the months preceding the accident. In the reports of these previous incidents, “there had never been an escape and total loss of control of the plane”, argued in particular the prosecutor Pierre Arnaudin.
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“Shocked” civil parties
Subsequently, the prosecutors detailed why, according to them, neither Airbus nor Air France had either committed “culpable negligence” on the training and information of the pilots about this breakdown and its repercussions. “Airbus and Air France could be justified in believing, at the material time, that these training and procedures should have been sufficient to manage the situation of AF447”, summed up the prosecutor.
He then addressed the civil parties. “We have heard the unbearable pain of the loss of your loved ones, your desire for punishment, for the culprits to be named. “Our duty as public prosecutors is to refer (…) to the law, without it being able to be influenced by the expectations of one or other of the parties, even if they are felt as legitimate”, continued the magistrate.
At the end of the hearing, relatives of the victims and their lawyers said they were “shocked”, “outraged” by these requisitions. “Forty-six years at the helm, this is the first time that I have seen a prosecutor plead, he pleaded in defense of Airbus and Air France, the prosecution was dishonored today”, slashed Me Alain Jakubowicz.
“A shame”, “I do not understand, it is completely at the expense of the pilots and completely at the expense of the major European and national companies”, reacted Sylvie Robert, sister of David Robert, co-pilot on flight AF447.