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Air France and Airbus found guilty of manslaughter over 2009 plane crash
- abrowne 5mo agoHearing this in the news reminded me of William Langewiesche's great piece in vanity fair about the cause: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-flight-447-crash https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-...
- twoodfin 5mo agoThat piece is an insightful pairing with season 2 of HBO’s “The Rehearsal”.
- jbverschoor 5mo agoStark contrast between Boeing (US) never been guilty of anything vs Airbus (EU)
- readthenotes1 5mo agoThey have, just not criminal penalties. No one will go to prison. The nearly $19 billion in losses to the value in Boeing is chump change ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings
- dcrazy 5mo agoBoeing literally pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges. https://apnews.com/article/boeing-guilty-plea-fraud-justice-victims-fd309f4cc643637ebd9637fd5864dbb9 https://apnews.com/article/boeing-guilty-plea-fraud-justice-...
- jbverschoor 5mo agoManslaughter for not having enough training during a specific malfunction, one crash Vs Fraud for two crashes caused by knowingly having unsafe planes (and two whistleblowers conveniently die)
- thrownthatway 5mo agoAh, off by one error.
- y1n0 5mo agoNot so stark when you realize that both airbus and air france were acquitted years ago. And then the prosecutors appealed! I find that terrifying.
- dcrazy 5mo agoTerrifying that they were acquitted, or that double jeopardy is legal in France?
- burnt-resistor 5mo agoWhat portion of blame does the pilot who yanks back on and holds the side stick without understanding the situation deserve? This is flying 101. How poorly trained in basic airmanship were they and how were they allowed to be pilots? That's the blame component for AF.
- wolvoleo 5mo agoIt is indeed very sad that all they had to do is let go of that stick for a moment.
- dcrazy 5mo agoAre you type rated on any Airbus models?
- arcfour 5mo agoDo you need to be to understand that nose up is not how to recover from a stall?
- plumefar 5mo agoI’m not a pilot. Zero experience except remote controlled airplanes. But IIRC, it happened by night, over the ocean. If the instruments fail you, this is really hard to “perceive” your speed and orientation.
- gambiting 5mo agoLike someone else said - there doesn't exist any situation, in any plane in any conditions, where holding the stick back the entire time would be an appropriate input. Literally doesn't exist. So if you're doing that.....what exactly are you hoping to achieve? Is a fundamental lack of understanding of how planes work.
- wolvoleo 5mo agoHmm I don't think it's as black and white as just blaming airbus. The pilots literally flew a perfectly flying plane straight into the ocean. And they had plenty of time to understand what was going on. But they didn't. They didn't willingly do it and the system misguided them but that wasn't the only factor. I agree airbus shares the blame but it's not the only one. The pilots should have realised the situation they were in, their training should have been better, there were a lot of factors. Admiral cloudberg has a good deep dive on it. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-long-way-down-the-crash-of-air-france-flight-447-8a7678c37982 https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-long-way-down-the-cr...
- marcosdumay 5mo agoThere were other near accidents before due to the exact same problem, the problem was well understood, and the changes needed to solve it was known. Air France didn't implement them and Airbus didn't require them because of money. They thought the chance of it causing a real accident was low and decided to risk it. Despite there being known near accidents already. And yes, "[the pilots] training should have been better" is part of the things that put both companies at fault. It's not the pilots fault that their training didn't cover it.
- Svip 5mo ago> Airbus didn't require them because of money I am pretty confident that aircraft manufacturers themselves cannot require these things, only regulators can. The FAA in particular used to lean heavily on budget constraints for airlines (who would also push back against expensive upgrades); but I am sure the same applies to EASA and other regulators as well.
- iepathos 5mo agoThat's right, Airbus is responsible for the faulty equipment onboard, not pilot training. Air France is responsible for its pilots' operational training and recurrent training.
- Cider9986 5mo agoMy cousin was one of the pilots. I heard he was a great guy, but I never got to meet him.
- flightsteward1 5mo agoRIP
- flightsteward1 5mo agoI remember reading about this 10-15 years ago. How is it possible that this almost took decades to resolve?
- fithisux 5mo agoWelcome to Greek style justice.
- MichaelZuo 5mo agoThe Greeks really wallow in 17 year long court cases? That seems a bit far fetched.
- EdwardDiego 5mo agoIt's just usual justice when the defendants have a lot of very expensive lawyers.
- EdwardDiego 5mo ago1) It crashed in 2009 2) Flight recorders weren't recovered until 2011 3) Manslaughter charges initially recommended in 2011 4) Accident report released in 2012 5) A long time with a lot of lawyers arguing about whether or not the charges should be heard in court 6) Charges dropped in 2019 7) However, public prosecutor announced proceeding with prosecution in 2021 8) Trial began in 2022 9) Both Airbus and AF acquitted in 2023 10) Prosecutor lodges an appeal in 2023 11) Trial begins in appeals court in 2025 12) Appeals court finds both companies guilty in 2026 Basically - these are two huge companies in France, they have a _lot_ of well paid lawyers, and a lot of political heft, but then there was a large amount of public outrage - and so the debate about whether or not to actually prosecute the case continued 2012 through to 2021 - the prosecutor reopening the charges in 2021 was due to intense public pressure. Cruically once it actually went to trial, it only took 4 years to reach a conclusion including with appeals, which is quicker than I'd expect - and something I noticed is that the appeals court was able to find them guilty, I'm not sure how it goes in other common law country judiciaries, but in my country, if this had gone to an appeals court, they don't have the power to find you guilty, but they could overturn the previous ruling, and direct the lower court to begin the trial again - so it would have been even slower. I guess that's an aspect of civil law judicial systems that might be considered an advantage.
- bahmboo 5mo agoThe are guilty of letting these terrible pilots fly humans over oceans. Sometimes the driver is bad and yet we point at the car and say it should have been designed "better". I have read a lot about this flight over the years and I have my obvious opinions.
- tverbeure 5mo agoIt's really a miracle that the black box was found.
- mike_hock 5mo agoCan I commit manslaughter now and pay a one-digit percentage of my income as a fine?
- nekzn 5mo agoThat depends on what you make. Thankfully fines for crimes are not based around a percentage of your income.
- Ylpertnodi 5mo agoFines should be based on your income.
- l23k4 5mo agoIf you do it in a comparable manner? Probably. Or, you know, just hit someone with a car. Criminal charges are often not filed even if the driver is clearly at fault.
- astrobe_ 5mo agoYou can't send a "moral person" to jail, unlike "physical persons". But sometimes I wonder if taking a fraction of their shares from them would make them more... Moral I guess.
- _DeadFred_ 5mo agoThis. Government custody for a person is incarceration. Government custody for a business would be company stock incarceration.
- KolmogorovComp 5mo agoTo all here saying this is was only a pilot error. I'll ask you, do you also think it is only a programmer error when a critical memory-safety bug is introduced in C? And that they should be the only one responsible and face jail-time (or death, like here)? Or is there more at play? Why use C in safety-critical code, why wasn't it catched by reviewers, fuzzing, testing, etc ? Error is not binary, it's a statistic. Even perfectly trained pilots/programmers do make errors depending on the situation. What you should ask is what the error chance is, and if it acceptable. As the accident report shows, the exact same pitot tube failure happened at least 15 times and recovered by the pilots. The 16th time, it killed more than two hundred people. Do you think a 1/16 chance of dying is appropriate in modern aviation safety?
- avadodin 5mo agoI'm not sure what you're arguing for. Out of the X% times this error occurs, are you okay with 1/16% failure? Can you avoid the failure-mode? What if mode 2 fails 2x of the time and it can't be averted by switching to the Y language.
- SomeHacker44 5mo ago1/16% is less than 0.001... A different number than being discussed, 1/16.
- avadodin 5mo agoI probably meant something along the lines of X%/16 but yes 1/16% is not 1/16.
- camgunz 5mo ago[dead]
- motxilo 5mo ago> The captain was on a break when the co-pilots became confused by faulty air-speed readings. They then mistakenly pointed the nose of the plane upwards when it stalled, instead of down. Investigators concluded the co-pilots did not have the training to deal with the situation Blame.
- alecco 5mo agoThis is very personal to me. I took that flight several times. Always went through strong turbulence. "At 32 years old, Bonin was the least experienced pilot on the flight crew. When the aircraft's pitot tubes froze and iced over in a storm, the automated systems temporarily failed and disabled the autopilot. This forced the crew into manual flight. Because the Airbus A330 features independent, non-linked sidesticks, the other co-pilot in the cockpit, David Robert, could not physically feel that Bonin was holding his stick back. The aircraft's computer simply averaged their opposing inputs." The experience of pilots has been dropping like a stone. This is hidden due to new technology, but when unusual situations arise many current pilots have no situational awareness. -- "A vote to reduce the 1,500-hour rule for pilot training will mean blood on your hands when the inevitable accident occurs as a result of an inadequately trained flight crew." -- Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger
- _DeadFred_ 5mo agoReminder to highlight the morality of Airbus. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/airbus-agrees-pay-over-39-billion-global-penalties-resolve-foreign-bribery-and-itar-case https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/airbus-agrees-pay-ov...