“No proven fault, there is no certain connection”. Airbus e Air Franceon the stand for manslaughter after plane crash of the flight AF447 Rio-Parisin which they died 228 people, were acquitted at the end of the trial which ended 14 years after the disaster. At the announcement of the sentence, some plaintiffs present in the courtroom stood up, amazed, as if to leave the room, before sitting down again in shocked silence. “We expected a impartial judgement, It is not so. Stwe are disgusted”: was the hot reaction of the president of the association Mutual Aid and Solidarity representing the families of the victims, Daniele Lamy. “Of these 14 years of waiting – she added – all that remains is despairconsternation and anger”.
On June 1, 2009, flight AF447 between Rio and Paris crashed in the middle of the night in theAtlantic Oceana few hours after takeoff from Brazil. Among the 228 victims of the disaster, 216 passengers and 12 crew members. On board the Airbus A330 registration F-GZCP were people of 33 different nationalities, including 72 French e 58 Brazilians as well as nine of Italians. Between these Giovanni Battista Lenziregional councilor of Trentino, Rino Zandonaidirector of the Trentini nel Mondo association, Luigi Zortea, mayor of Canal San Bovo, together in Brazil for solidarity projects in collaboration with Trentino emigrant communities. On flight AF447 also the South Tyroleans Georg LercherAlexander Paulitsch and Georg Martiner.
The court ruled out criminal offenses of the two companies, judging that if “errors” were committed on the civilian level, “no certain causal link with the accident it can be demonstrated”. The judges beyond the Alps therefore limit themselves to recognizing only the “civil liability” of the damages. The economic estimate was postponed to a hearing scheduled for September 4th. “They tell us ‘responsible but not guilty’. And it is true that we were expecting the word guilty”, commented one of the victims’ lawyers, Alain Jakubowicz. “It doesn’t make any sense to me,” she echoed, Ophelie Toulliou, who lost his brother in the disaster. Deeply saddened by the sentence, the woman expressed a “feeling of injustice” and “incomprehension” for the judges’ decision.
For its part, Air France “takes note of the sentence”. In a note, the airline assures that “it will always keep in mind the memory of the victims of this terrible accident and extends its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones”. For Airbus, the ruling is “coherent” with the non-suit pronounced at the end of the judicial instruction, in the 2019. Even the European aeronautical giant expresses solidarity with the family and “reiterates” its “total I commit in the field of safety aerial”.