BRAZIL PERSPECTIVE

Brasília, May 21, 2026. Nearly 17 years after the disappearance of Flight AF447 in the South Atlantic, the Paris Court of Appeal recognized Air France and Airbus as guilty of involuntary manslaughter, overturning the acquittal pronounced in first instance in April 2023. The decision resonates with particular intensity in Brazil: the flight took off from Rio de Janeiro's Tom Jobim International Airport on May 31, 2009, and carried 58 Brazilian citizens among the 228 victims of 33 nationalities.

The court qualified the two companies as 'unique responsible' for the worst aviation accident in French history, imposing the maximum fine provided for by law: €225,000 each — approximately R$ 1.3 million —. The judges held that the faults of Airbus and Air France 'certainly contributed to the accident occurring'. Airbus is condemned for having underestimated the gravity of the failures of the Pitot anemometric probes and for not having alerted the companies with the necessary speed. Air France is held responsible for not having provided pilots with adapted training for situations where these sensors freeze, nor having informed its crews sufficiently of the known risks.

The black boxes, recovered from the ocean floor two years after the tragedy, had established the fatal chronology: the freezing of the Pitot probes at high altitude, near the Equator, had triggered a sequence of pilot errors leading the Airbus A330-200 to stall in less than five minutes. In 2012, the French BEA had concluded that the incorrect reaction of the crew to the failure of the sensors was the direct cause of the crash. Airbus and Air France had constantly shifted the responsibility to the decisions made by the pilots in emergency situations.

For Brazilian families, the verdict goes beyond the financial dimension. Maarten Van Sluys, vice-president of the Association of Families of Victims and brother of Adriana Van Sluys, press officer missing in the crash, declared to Agência Brasil: 'We now have a certificate of the fault of Air France and Airbus. It's an immeasurable moral victory.' Daniele Lamy, president of the victims' association, stated that 'justice has been absolutely rendered.'

But the judicial outcome remains fragile. Airbus announced its intention to appeal to the highest French jurisdiction as soon as the verdict was announced. Lawyers predict that the litigation could last several more years.