ROMANIA PERSPECTIVE

Bucharest, May 21, 2026. Seventeen years after the disaster, the Paris Court of Appeal handed down a guilty verdict to Air France and Airbus for involuntary manslaughter in the AF447 crash case. The two companies will each pay a fine of €225,000 — the maximum legal limit for this type of offense in French law. However, it is precisely this cap that has sparked criticism relayed by Romanian media G4Media, Mediafax, and Digi24: a sum deemed symbolic, or even paltry, in light of the two giants' air transport and aeronautical construction revenue figures.

Flight AF447 took off from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009, bound for Paris. As it crossed a stormy front over the Atlantic, the Airbus A330 disappeared from radar screens and crashed into the ocean. All 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board perished. The wreckage was located after a search covering some 10,000 square kilometers of ocean floor; the black boxes were not recovered until 2011, at a depth of approximately 4,000 meters.

The BEA's investigation concluded in 2012 that the crew had led the aircraft into a stall, in an inadequate reaction to the freezing of the Pitot tubes, which measure airspeed. However, the criminal proceedings targeted systemic failures: Airbus is accused of underestimating the consequences of a known malfunction in these tubes, while Air France is held accountable for inadequate pilot training in extreme situations. According to Digi24, an expert report had already established in 2012 that the crew had been overwhelmed by a situation that 'could have been mastered.'

In 2023, a lower court had acquitted the two companies, ruling that while there were instances of negligence, the direct causal link to the accident could not be established with certainty. The prosecution appealed. The Court of Appeal's decision reverses this verdict and acknowledges the full penal responsibility of the two companies. Air France and Airbus, who have consistently denied any guilt, may still file an appeal to the Court of Cassation — which, according to French lawyers cited by Romanian sources, would prolong the litigation for several more years.

For the families of the victims, this conviction marks an important milestone after nearly two decades of proceedings. They had secured a trial in 2022 — a success in itself, after judges had refused to dismiss the case in 2019.