Rio-Paris flight trial: siblings pay tribute to the pilot who "did everything" to save the plane
The civil parties arrive at the Paris courthouse on October 10, 2022 to attend the trial of the companies Airbus and Air France in the case of the crash of the Rio-Paris Air France flight on June 1, 2009 which killed 228 people.
AFP - THOMAS SAMSON
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
The two sisters and the brother of David Robert, at the controls of the AF447 which crashed in the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, affirmed this Tuesday November 29 in court that this one had done its maximum.
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With our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
Marine de la Moissonière
“
Our brother David is first and foremost a victim of this tragedy
,” says Sylvie Robert.
“
Even more than before this trial, I am convinced that he committed no piloting fault.
Neither he nor any of the other pilots.
A certainty reinforced by listening to black boxes, explain in turn Sylvie, Sarah and Teddy.
For them, from now on, the verdict does not matter;
the trial rehabilitated the memory of their brother and his colleagues.
They were "
not idiots
" as the media and "
pseudo experts
" said after the crash, insists Sarah, the youngest of the siblings.
All three pay tribute to this brilliant, demanding, curious, competent big brother, who loved “
his job, his son, his family and life.
»
Airbus found guilty
On June 1, 2009, the three Pitot probes, which make it possible to calculate the speed of the plane, iced up.
In the cockpit, this failure led to the disconnection of the autopilot, the switch to a degraded piloting mode and numerous alarms.
Destabilized, the two co-pilots, soon joined by the captain, lost control of the aircraft, which hit the Atlantic less than five minutes later.
Defending itself from any “
fault
” that led to the accident, Airbus, tried like Air France for manslaughter, argues that “
pilot errors
” are at the origin of the disaster.
But for the Roberts, the culprit is Airbus.
“
If only we had explained this failure to the pilots.
You just had to teach them once, just once
,” regrets Sylvie.
“
Since the beginning of the trial, we have not stopped asking if the crash could have been avoided if the pilots had done this or that.
Well, the question I ask is: if Airbus had done its job correctly, would this tragedy have taken place?
»
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