Yemenia Airways was sentenced on appeal in Paris for manslaughter and unintentional injuries, fifteen years after the crash in 2009 of one of its planes off the coast of the Comoros, which caused the death of 152 people.
The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the judgment of 14 September 2022, which had sanctioned the company with the maximum fine provided for by law at the time, notably 225,000 euros, the maximum allowed at the time by law.
The court upheld the involuntary homicide and injuries verdict against Yemenia Airways over the 2009 crash that killed nearly everyone onboard except a 12-year-old girl who miraculously survived.
Comoros crash
Flight Yemenia 626 was on approach to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros islands that lie between Mozambique and Madagascar, on 29 June 2009, after departing from the airport in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
Among the 142 passengers and 11 crew were 66 French citizens heading to France’s overseas territory of Mayotte, part of the Comoros archipelago.
Just before 11pm, the Airbus A310 plunged into the Indian Ocean with its engines running at full throttle, killing everyone on board except Bahia Bakari, then just 12 years old.
Investigators and experts found there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, blaming instead “inappropriate actions by the crew during the approach to Moroni airport, leading to them losing control.”
Prosecutors accused the company of pilot training programs “riddled with gaps” and of continuing to fly to Moroni at night despite several non-functioning landing lights.
The presiding judge in 2022 found that, even though the airline had complied with all regulations, there were “two cases of carelessness directly linked to the accident.”
She faulted the continued night flights to Moroni despite the light outages, and the assignment of a co-pilot with “weak spots” in his training.
Complaint
Around 560 people had joined the suit as plaintiffs, many of them from the region around Marseille in southern France, home to many of the victims.
The presiding judge of the appeals court on Tuesday confirmed the 2022 verdict.
She added as a sanction that the ruling should be publicly displayed at the airports of Paris Charles de Gaulle and Marseille for two months.
The sole survivor of the crash, Bahia Bakari, was en route from Paris to attend a wedding in the Comoros with her mother, who died in the crash.
After blacking out following the plane’s impact with the water, she found herself surrounded by wreckage in the sea, where she drifted for 12 hours before being rescued.
(AFP)
