On Monday in Paris, the Spanish airline Swiftair was fined €225,000 for “involuntary manslaughter,” 12 years after the crash of Air Algerie Flight AH5017, which killed 116 people in northern Mali, including 23 Burkinabe.
The Paris Criminal Court held Swiftair – the owner of the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 chartered by Air Algerie – liable for the crash of Flight AH5017, ruling that its failures in crew training and
instruction had “undoubtedly contributed to the accident.”
Flight AH5017 crashed on July 24, 2014, shortly after departing from Ouagadougou en route to Algiers. None of the 116 people on board survived.
The aircraft was carrying six crew members and 110 passengers, including citizens of Burkina Faso, France, Lebanon, and Algeria.
That night, the plane was flying through an intertropical storm system.
The de-icing system had not been activated. Ice crystals had formed in the pressure sensors, disrupting the data transmitted to the engines.
The engines then automatically reduced their power. The crew did not respond appropriately. The plane stalled before crashing in northern Mali.
During the trial, the prosecution relied on several expert reports. In particular, it noted that the captain had not completed a mandatory refresher course on anti-icing procedures.
The pilot and his female co-pilot, who were employed on a seasonal basis, were also returning to work after several months of inactivity.
After a three-week trial in March, the prosecution had sought the maximum fine allowed for the airline. The court ultimately upheld these recommendations.
The conviction comes more than twelve years after the accident, one of the deadliest in the history of aviation in the Sahel.
HO/ac/Sf/fss/as/APA