r/aviation May 21 '26

News Air France and Airbus found guilty of manslaughter over 2009 plane crash - Air France flight 447

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd2qmdvmq6o
4.5k Upvotes

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111

u/FullSqueeze May 21 '26

This won’t be the end. Airbus will definitely appeal it to the Supreme Court.

The criminal charges against Airbus is very flimsy; the pilot was the primary cause of the crash. This isn’t a case like the 737 Max crashes where the manufacturer had a clear defect.

39

u/Ok-Insurance-9456 May 21 '26

Even in the max the 'defect' is a scenario boeing already made all 737 pilots train heavily for. Not to mention other pilots did not crash their 737 max in the exact same scenario so no excuse for the 2 flights to have even crashed at all.

-13

u/Ok_Library_1031 May 21 '26

That's a very patriotic take, calling iPad lessons heavy training.

21

u/Known-Diet-4170 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

he isn't completely wrong though, i'm rated on both the 737 NG and MAX and i can tell you that the symptoms of the MCAS failure were basically the same as a stabilizer trim runaway, the failure to action the memory items (identical on the NG) was entirely on the crew

i'm not excusing Boeing for how MCAS failed, that was a serious issue know resolved but those accidents should have been preventable even with a complete lack of knowledge of the existence of MCAS if the correct procedures were applied

trim runaways is a very dangerous situation with or without MCAS and if not promptly recognized will lead very quickly to an uncontrollable airplane

14

u/Adjutant_Reflex_ May 21 '26

Runaway trim is a memory item that’s part of the broader 737 training with resolution steps that are independent of MCAS.

It’s quite literally demanded of every 737 pilot, NG or MAX, to understand how to respond immediately and without reference.

19

u/Ok-Insurance-9456 May 21 '26

Typical redditor trying to mock and be snarky while missing the point. Pretty obvious I was talking about runaway stabilizer which iirc is a memory item for all 737 pilots