Final minutes of Air France flight AF477 to be examined as trial opens

As a landmark trial opens in Paris on Monday, the final minutes of the Air France flight from Rio to Paris will be examined.

The worst plane crash in the history of Air France is the subject of a trial between the airline and the aircraft maker.

For the first time in French history, companies have been put on trial for an air crash rather than individuals.

The world of air travel was thrown into turmoil on 1 June 2009, when flight AF477 disappeared from radar as it crossed the night sky during a storm over the Atlantic. There was no sign of the A330.

After debris was found in the ocean, it took nearly two years to find the rest of the plane. Over 22 months, 17,000 sq km of the ocean bed was searched by the French.

All of the crew and passengers on the plane were killed.

One of the accidents that changed aviation was the crash of the plane in the ocean. Changes in safety regulations, pilot training, and the use of airspeed sensors were made due to it.

The final minutes in the cockpit of the plane will be heard in the trial.

As the plane approached the equator on its way to Paris, it entered a so-called "Intertropical convergence zone" that can produce storms with heavy precipitation. Ice crystals at high altitudes interfered with the plane's airspeed and altitude information as a storm buffeted the plane. Automatic pilot functions stopped working

The jet went into a stall.

One co-pilot is heard saying in the flight recordings that they have lost their speed, before other indicators mistakenly show a loss of altitude and a series of alarm messages appear on the cockpit screens. One of the pilots doesn't know what's going on.

The trial will look at the role of the airspeed sensors.

Daniele Lamy, president of the victims' group, Entraide et Solidarité, told Agence France-Presse: "We expect an impartial and exemplary trial so that this never happens again, and that as a result the two defendants will make safety their priority rather than

If found criminally responsible, Air France and Airbus could face fines of up to 225,000, a fraction of their annual revenues.

Both companies denied criminalNegligence and the charges were dropped due to pilot error

In 2021, a Paris appeals court ruled that there was enough evidence to proceed with a trial.

In a statement to Agence France-Presse, the airline said that it would request an exoneration for the accident.

The A330 jet that was put into service just four years before the accident did not comment before the trial, but it did deny any criminalNegligence.