By Grégoire Sauvage, PARIS
France
Air France and Airbus will face trial starting Monday in Paris, 13 years after the crash of an A330 shortly after takeoff from Rio de Janeiro that resulted in the deaths of 228 people. Civil parties hope to get answers from the two aviation giants, who both still deny responsibility for the disaster.
After more than 10 years of
proceedings and a reversal of the court's decision to dismiss the case, Air France and Airbus will be
tried on charges of "involuntary manslaughter". From Monday, the two
aeronautical giants will appear before the Paris criminal
court. They will face the families of the 228 passengers and crew members who
died onboard flight AF447 from Rio de
Janeiro to Paris when it crashed on June 1, 2009.
Civil parties, who have been
caught up for a decade in a judicial labyrinth of expertise and
counter-expertise reports requested by Airbus, have been long awaiting this
extraordinary trial.
"We are both impatient
and a little anxious for this trial to begin", says Danièle Lamy,
president of the association Entraide et Solidarité AF447, who lost
her son in the tragedy. "Even though this will plunge us back into an
extremely painful moment, this trial is absolutely essential for honouring the
memory of those lost and for the families," she added.
"The families of the
victims want the company and the European manufacturer to be found
guilty," says Sébastien Busy, a lawyer representing several civil
parties. "So far, no one has been found responsible, and the two
parties involved consider that this accident was simply a series of
unlucky mishaps."
For the 476 civil parties,
however, the tragedy that took place over the Atlantic was
instead the result of a pattern of malfunctions, negligence and a wait-and-see
approach on the part of Airbus and Air France.
The Bureau of Inquiry and
Analysis (BEA), a French government agency responsible for investigating
aviation accidents and incidents, conducted a series of investigations and in
July 2012 established the series of human and technical failures that led
to the crash.
On May 31, 2009, the Airbus
A330 chartered by Air France took off from Rio de Janeiro en route
to Paris. Upon leaving Brazil’s
coastline the pilots encountered a frequent meteorological phenomenon known as
the "doldrums", a thunderstorm area that causes severe turbulence and
cold temperatures.
Wreckage of the Air France Airbus A330 being unloaded at the port of Recife in Brazil on June 14, 2009.
In these extreme conditions,
frost formed on the Pitot probes, which are nickel tubes located at the
front of the aircraft that continuously provide information regarding the
aircraft's speed. As a result, the pilots received false data about the
aircraft’s speed from the faulty probes and so believed that the aircraft
was losing altitude.
Two years after the crash, the
discovery of the aircraft’s black bloxes uncovered flight conversations that
revealed a lack of understanding within the cockpit. At the time, the
pilots had not received adequate training to deal with this kind of situation.
To regain altitude, they
pulled back on the control column to pitch the plane up, which seemed to be the
most logical thing do in the circumstances. The manoeuvre proved fatal, as the
plane's nose was too high and its speed too low. The plane reached
38,000 feet, lost its lift in the air and fell like a stone. The
"STALL" alarm sounded and in less than four minutes, the A330 had
crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
During the trial, Airbus is
expected to insist once again that the crash was caused by pilot error so
that it can absolve itself of any responsibility. "The trial is being
held for the dead, who cannot defend themselves," says Jean-Claude
Guidicelli, who represents the father of Clara Amado, a flight attendant who
died in the crash. "But in the hierarchy of responsibility, there is first
Airbus, which should have changed the Pitot probes."
"We see the main culprit
as Airbus, which underestimated the risk linked to the probes freezing and did
not take into account the incidents that had taken place in the year preceding
the crash," said Busy. "It seems that Airbus waited, hoping that
nothing would happen."
One year before the Rio-Paris
crash, some 20 incidents linked to frozen probes had indeed been recorded and
brought to the manufacturer’s attention. These occurrences were considered serious
enough to push certain companies such as Air Caraïbes and XL Airways to replace
the French-made Thalès probes with those made by US manufacturer
Goodrich.
Why didn’t Air France do the
same? According to the BEA, the airline company had expressed concern about
these failures to Airbus.
"Air France wanted to
keep Thalès because it is a French company," says Guidicelli, who believes
that "lives were sacrificed on the altar of money and business".
After the disaster, the model in question was replaced worldwide.
During the nine weeks of the
trial, one question in particular will be brought up repeatedly: could this
accident have been avoided? The civil parties are convinced that it could
have: Airbus was blinded by an unbounded faith in the reliability of its
A330, and Air France, for its part, should have better informed its crews about
the incidents in which Pitot probes had malfunctioned.
But after 10 years of
proceedings, some of the victims' families doubt that they will get the answers
to the questions haunting them. "We risk witnessing a new game of
ping-pong between Air France and Airbus, who are blaming each other," says
Guidicelli.
"Airbus would
re-establish some honour for itself, were it to acknowledge its share of
responsibility for the accident," said Danièle Lamy from the Entraide
et Solidarité AF447 association.
If the court finds them
liable, Air France and Airbus may have to pay fines of up to €225,000. The
trial is due to end on December 8.
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