Air France and Airbus are set to stand trial over an air crash in 2009 that killed all 228 people on board after a French appeals court overturned a previous decision not to push ahead with charges. Air France flight 447, a twin-engined Airbus A330, crashed into the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1 2009 after the jet stalled during a thunderstorm. It was the deadliest crash in the history of Air France, killing 216 passengers and 12 crew members. On Wednesday, French judges, said the two groups should stand trial for “involuntary manslaughter”, according to a spokesperson for the appeals court. A date for the trial has not yet been set, said the same person. Air France and Airbus, one of the world’s largest aeroplane manufacturers, had been put under formal investigation in 2011 for the same charge. Wednesday’s decision overturns a 2019 ruling against a trial, with the judges at the time blaming human error for the crash, saying the “accident is evidently due to a conjunction of elements that had never occurred before, and thus highlighted dangers that could not have been perceived before this accident”. In 2019, prosecutors had only recommended putting Air France on trial. <br/>
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The EC has approved E12.8m of Italian state aid for Alitalia to compensate the airline for losses suffered during the coronavirus pandemic, the EU executive said Wednesday. It is the fourth authorisation for subsidies to Alitalia that the Commission has approved since the beginning of the pandemic. The new direct grant takes to more than E310m the total of state aid approved by the EU in favour of Alitalia for damages caused by the pandemic from March to December 2020. “This measure aims at compensating the airline for the damages suffered on certain routes due to the coronavirus outbreak during the month of January 2021,” the Commission said.<br/>
Russian investigators probing the fatal Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 landing accident at Moscow two years ago have analysed a Yakutia Superjet overrun and gear collapse as part of an assessment of the type’s structures and components. After returning to Sheremetyevo airport on 5 May 2019 the Aeroflot aircraft landed hard, suffering an undercarriage collapse before being destroyed by fire from escaping fuel. The Interstate Aviation Committee’s inquiry – which has been held up by pandemic-related restrictions – is exploring several aspects of the aircraft’s operation and design. It has looked into details of the Yakutia Superjet accident at Yakutsk in October 2018, during which the landing-gear collapsed when the jet overran the runway and struck an obstacle in an area under construction. The inquiry has completed analysis of undercarriage load modelling carried out by landing-gear supplier Safran, including assessment of research results into safety-related components of the landing-gear attachment points. Investigators have also studied the destruction sequence of the landing-gear and wings in the vicinity of the fuel tanks.<br/>