A French appeals court on Tuesday upheld a 2022 verdict against Yemenia Airways, holding the airline responsible for the 2009 crash of Flight 626 that killed nearly all passengers except for a 12-year-old girl, a Le Monde/AFP report says.
The court confirmed the original ruling, which found Yemenia Airways guilty of involuntary homicide and injuries and ordered the company to pay a €225,000 fine, the maximum allowed by law at the time. The court also ordered that the ruling be publicly displayed at the airports of Paris Charles de Gaulle and Marseille for two months.
Flight 626, en route from Sanaa, Yemen to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros islands, crashed into the Indian Ocean on June 29, 2009, shortly before landing. The Airbus A310, carrying 142 passengers and 11 crew, including 66 French citizens, plunged into the ocean with its engines at full throttle, killing all onboard except for Bahia Bakari, then aged 12.
Investigators determined that the aircraft itself was not at fault, instead blaming “inappropriate actions by the crew during the approach to Moroni airport, leading to them losing control.” Prosecutors accused Yemenia Airways of having pilot training programs “riddled with gaps” and of continuing to fly to Moroni at night despite several non-functioning landing lights.
In the 2022 ruling, the presiding judge found that while the airline had complied with regulations, there were “two cases of carelessness directly linked to the accident.” She denounced the airline’s decision to continue night flights to Moroni despite the light outages and the assignment of a co-pilot with “weak spots” in his training.
The decision was welcomed by the families of the victims, who had been seeking justice for the tragedy.
Bahia Bakari, the sole survivor of the crash, was traveling from Paris to attend a wedding in the Comoros with her mother, who died in the crash. After blacking out, Bakari found herself surrounded by wreckage in the sea, where she drifted for 12 hours before being rescued.
