Air France and Airbus have been found guilty of manslaughter over a 2009 plane crash that k!lled 228 people.
The Paris Appeals Court found the airline and aircraft manufacturer “solely and entirely responsible” for the incident, in which flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
The passenger jet stalled during a storm and plunged into the water, k!lling all on board.
A court had previously cleared the companies in April 2023, but they were found guilty on Thursday after an eight-week trial. Both have repeatedly denied the charges and say they will appeal.
All 12 crew members and 216 passengers on board the flight were killed when the plane crashed into the sea from a height of 38,000ft (11,580m), making it the deadliest incident in French aviation history.
The wreckage was located after a long search of 10,000 sq km (3,860 sq miles) of the sea floor. But the flight recorder was not found until 2011, after months of deep-sea searches.
Relatives of some of the passengers, who were mainly French, Brazilian, and German nationals, gathered to hear the verdict on Thursday.
The companies have been asked to pay the maximum fine – €225,000 ($261,720; £194,500) each – but some victims’ families have criticised the amount as a token penalty.
Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 victims’ association, who lost her son in the accident, praised the court’s verdict, adding that the justice system was “at last, taking into account the pain of the families faced with a collective tragedy of unbearable brutality”.
The ruling may be seen as causing damage to the companies’ reputations.
During their closing arguments in November, the deputy prosecutors said the companies’ behaviour had been “unacceptable”, accusing them of “spouting nonsense and pulling arguments out of thin air”.
The crash led to a complex recovery operation in a remote part of the Atlantic Ocean, more than 700 miles (1127km) from the coast of South America.
During the initial searches, the French government had been responsible for investigating the crash, and Brazilian forces took charge of retrieving the bodies.
In the first 26 days of searches, 51 bodies were recovered, many still buckled into their seats.
The passengers came from 33 different countries, including 61 French nationals, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, two Americans, five Britons, and three Irish nationals.
