“Not guilty”. The representative of Air France argued this Thursday before the Paris Criminal Court that the company had not committed any fault in causing the accident of the Rio-Paris flight in 2009, while refusing to accuse the pilots and their co-defendant Airbus.
After the three magistrates of the court on Wednesday, Pascal Weil, former chief pilot and instructor, faces questions from the parties on Thursday, starting with those from the civil parties. “Does Air France assume any responsibility for the occurrence of this tragedy?” Me Alain Jakubowicz, lawyer of the association Entraide et Solidarité AF447, reformulates, insists.
“I can’t call them mistakes”
After the Pitot probes that measured the plane’s speed suddenly froze, the pilots of flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris lost control of the plane, which hit the ocean at 2:14 a.m. (universal time) on March 1. June 2009. 228 people died. Air France is sued for not having sufficiently trained its pilots on the freezing of the probes and, above all, on its consequences in the cabin, while similar breakdowns had multiplied during the months prior to the disaster.
Me Jakubowicz continues: Airbus, tried with Air France for involuntary manslaughter, attributes the disaster to “pilot error”. What does the company think?
Bad pilots, incomplete training or doubts?
“We are in a binary alternative,” says Me Jakubowicz. “Either the pilots were bad” or “there was a hole in the racket in their formation.” “Thank you for putting me before an impossible choice”, declares Pascal Weil, rejecting the “two branches of the alternative” for a “third way, that of doubt”. For him, it is the training “model”, as it existed throughout the aeronautical industry, which is in question because “it ignored the human factor, individual variability”.
“Have you considered getting into politics? That is the question that your non-answer inspires me,” the lawyer shrieks, who then questions him: if he himself had been at the controls of AF447, “the plane falls or it doesn’t fall “. Does this demand exist or not? “I don’t know, because I don’t know what led colleagues to act this way,” says Pascal Weil.
Airbus representative expected on Monday
Several lawyers continue, some question him hollowly about the responsibility of Airbus, in terms of the design of the plane or the treatment of incidents. Each time, Pascal Weil makes contact, stating that he wants to stick to “facts” and not “theories”. When asked, he repeats that Air France has trained its pilots “well”, “beyond” the standards. That they were also “informed” of this breakdown through “six” different channels: ticket offices, display, knowledge control session…
For him, the risk was correctly valued in view of the knowledge of the time. The nine reported incidents within the company do not “indicate a loss of control” and Air France was not aware of similar damage at other companies.
The prosecution asks “some quick and technical questions”, Air France’s lawyers only one, in the form of precision. Then it’s the turn of the Airbus advice: a handful of questions, without putting Pascal Weil on the spot. The manufacturer’s representative is expected on Monday afternoon, instead.
Source: BFM TV
