The prosecution demanded a trial in July, but the magistrates did not follow its requisitions. Ten years after the crash of the flight Rio-Paris, the investigating judges in charge of the investigation into this accident - which had made 228 dead - pronounced a nonsuit general for Airbus and Air France, learned Thursday, September 5 l AFP from concordant sources.

On 1 June 2009, flight AF447 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. All passengers and crew, of 34 nationalities, had died in the accident, the deadliest in the history of the French company.

Starting point of the disaster: the in-flight icing of Pitot speed probes, which led to a disruption of the Airbus A330's speed measurements and disoriented the pilots until the aircraft stalled.

In this case, the two companies were indicted in 2011 for "involuntary homicides".

"A conjunction of elements that never happened"

In their 189-page ordinance signed on August 29, the examining magistrates Nicolas Aubertin and Fabienne Bernard consider that "this accident is clearly explained by a conjunction of elements that had never occurred, and which has therefore highlighted dangers that could not be perceived before ".

The investigations, which aimed to investigate whether it was possible to attribute to the airline or to the manufacturer an indirect responsibility in this crash, "did not lead to characterize a faulty breach of Airbus or Air France in connection ( ...) with the faults of pilotage (...) at the origin of the accident, "they continue.

"How not to think that this decision is guided by economic interests superior to those of justice?", Denounced in a statement the main association of relatives of victims, AF447 Mutual Aid and solidarity. She adds that she will appeal an order "which insults the memory of the victims".

Contacted by AFP, Air France and Airbus did not wish to comment on the decision of the investigating judges.

In its final indictment issued on July 12, the Paris prosecutor's office considered that the airline had "committed negligence and recklessness" by not giving its pilots enough information on the procedure to be adopted in case of anomalies related probes that control the speed of the device, after several incidents of the same kind in previous months.

A decision "very questionable"

Olivier Morice, a lawyer for several families of victims, said he was "surprised at least that Air France is not sent back". Judging the judges' decision "very questionable", he also said he would appeal this order.

Since its inception, the investigation has resulted in a battle of experts to establish the responsibilities in the sequence that led to the crash of the device.

In 2012, the first survey pointed to both crew failures, technical problems and a lack of pilot information in the event of probe icing, despite a resurgence of previous incidents reported to Airbus. The manufacturer had then asked for a second opinion, which mainly focused on an "inappropriate reaction of the crew" and the deficiencies of Air France.

Judging too much for Airbus, relatives of the victims and the airline had attacked the report before the Paris Court of Appeal, which ordered its cancellation and the reopening of the investigation.

However, the last counter-expertise, handed over in December 2017, had once again aroused the indignation of the civil parties. The experts reaffirmed that the "direct cause" of the accident "results from unsuitable actions in manual flight" of the crew and tended to clear Airbus.

In a recent attempt to convince the judges to return Airbus with Air France, after the prosecutors' requisitions, families of victims had submitted a report to the French court on August 8, proving, according to them, that Airbus had known since 2004 weaknesses of his speed sensors, to no avail.

With AFP