French Court Clear Airbus and Air France of Involuntary manslaughter Charges of AF 447

  I remembered studying this one on "Human Factors" classes with my employer,  The long flight over the Atlantic from Rio to CDG at night, one of the "Pitot tubes" got iced over, the pilot had suffered "Spatial Disorientation" and kept the joystick pulled back and climbed the plane, but didn't increase the engine speed, he was disorientated and didn't trust his instrumentation and basically stalled his plane and splatted it belly down into the Atlantic.  The Co-Pilot has the options to hit a button and transfer the stick control to him overiding the pilot, but he didn't do that.  I surmise the noise and alarms of "Stall Warnings"  rattled the Co-pilot and he didn't realize that the pilot had a deathgrip on the joystick and pulling it backwards.  Airbus logic works that the first one that inputs into the joysticks has control of the plane and the computer will ignore input from the other stick unless you hit "The Reset Button" on the glare shield and that transfers stick control to the other.  I felt bad for the crews and the passengers, but in my mind, the plane wasn't at fault.  I am not in a hurry to blame the pilots...I hate it when I hear the words "Pilot Error" because it is the "Catchall" for a plane crash or accident.  Find out exactly what caused the accident, get to the root cause identify it and keep it from happening again.  But in this case in my mind, the pilot actually messed up.

 

The tail fin of Air France Flight AF447 is recovered from the Atlantic Ocean after a fatal crash in June, 2009.

 

 

PARIS—A French court has cleared Air France and Airbus of involuntary manslaughter charges relating to the crash of Air France flight AF447 on June 1, 2009, while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

The Air France Airbus A330-200 plunged into the Atlantic amid stormy weather around four hours after take-off, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board.

The verdict comes nearly 14 years after the accident, and six months after the start of the trial. Lawyers representing the families of some of the 228 victims on board had called for a trial for many years before they got their wish.

The Paris Court of Justice said April 17 that while errors had been made, “no certain link of causality” could be established.

“Air France acknowledges today’s Paris Court of Justice acquittal decision,” the airline said April 17 after the verdict was announced. “Deeply saddened by this terrible accident, Air France will always remember the victims and wishes to express its heartfelt sympathy to their loved ones. The company also wishes to reaffirm its continued trust in all of its pilots and flight crews and reiterates that the safety of its customers and crews is its absolute priority.”

Airbus said: “The Paris Criminal Court has ruled that all criminal charges against Airbus have been dismissed. This decision is consistent with the dismissal of the case by the judges in charge of the investigation in 2019. We would like to express our sympathy to those who lost a family member, a loved one, a colleague and everyone touched by this tragedy... Airbus reaffirms the full commitment of the company and all its employees to keep prioritizing a safety-first culture across the company and the aviation sector.”

In July 2012, following a two-year search for the aircraft’s flight recorders, an investigation by France’s Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses (BEA) concluded the flight crew had become disorientated and reacted incorrectly to faulty readings from the aircraft’s pitot tubes, which had become blocked by ice.

 

   Video Clip from the "Smithsonian Channel" off da Tube that explains what happened.