French judges dropped a decade-long investigation into Air France and planemaker Airbus over the 2009 crash of a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which killed all 228 people aboard and led to new aircraft safety regulations, reports the Associated Press.
The decision infuriated victims’ groups in France and Brazil that have pushed to bring the case to trial, and believe the airline and jet manufacturer are at least partially responsible.
They plan to appeal, as does France’s main pilots’ union. The judges’ decision not to pursue manslaughter charges against Air France and Airbus was not made public, but suggests they believe the pilots alone were at fault.
Victims’ association FENVAC on Thursday announced the ruling, which was confirmed by a French judicial official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk about the case.
Air France Flight 447 left Rio for Paris but crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. Later, one of history’s most ambitious and costly undersea search operations managed to find the plane’s flight recorders in the Atlantic depths.
The French accident investigation bureau, the BEA, found that external speed sensors were frozen and produced irregular readings on the aircraft, which went into an aerodynamic stall.