Twist in trial over the crash of a Rio to Paris flight in 2009

There’s been an unusual development in the trial of Airbus and Air France over the crash of a Rio to Paris flight in 2009

Ticker’s Europe Correspondent Ryan Thompson has more from Paris

After weeks in court, prosecutors have decided NOT to ask for a conviction of the two French companies – even as they acknowledge that’s not what victims families would want.  

French prosecutors said they were unable to prove the companies were guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Their guilt “appears to us to be impossible to prove. We know that this view will most likely be difficult to hear for the civil plaintiffs,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors initially dropped charges against the companies in 2019. This sparked anger in families of the victims.

A Paris appeals court overturned this decision in 2021 and ordered the trial to go ahead. 

“We have a prosecutor who is supposed to defend the people who in the end is defending the multinational Airbus,” Daniele Lamy, the head of victims’ association Entraide et Solidarite AF447, told reporters.