Airbus and Air France are convened on March 17 by justice for their likely under investigation for "manslaughter" in the investigation into the accident on 1 June 2009 flight from Rio to Paris, which had killed 228 people off Brazil.
The judges made the announcement to the families of victims and their advocates met Thursday afternoon at the Palais de Justice in Paris for an update on the survey, less than a month before the launch of a new phase of research boxes black unit.
According to several participants at the meeting, Air France and Airbus should be indicted on March 17 as corporations for "involuntary homicide".
"There is nothing new in the folder that explains why the judge considering the indictment already when there are no reports of experts and a new judicial phase sea search will start March 20, "responded to AFP Fernand Garnault, counsel for Air France.
"We do not doubt for one moment that the judge relied on very seriously," he commented to the press one of the victims' lawyers, Alain Jakubowicz."We hope an adversarial and explanations from mastodons + +", Airbus and Air France said the lawyer.
To Me Olivier Morice, another plaintiffs' lawyer, "is a real turning point" because "if the judges make this decision, it demonstrates that the evidence in their possession are serious.It's a breakthrough. "
Experts have particularly considered "too late and ineffective" Air France's reaction to early warnings about the reliability of pitot probes, which measure the speed of the aircraft, according to a source familiar with the matter.
No indictment has yet been issued in the investigation so far suspended the possible discovery of the black boxes of the Airbus A330 that crashed on 1 June 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean. So far, only 3% of the aircraft and fifty bodies have been recovered in the days following the air disaster.
New search operations at sea from the wreck of the Airbus will be launched on March 20 to a new area of 10,000 km2.This will be the fourth phase of research from the downed aircraft and its black boxes, which could last until July, in three steps of 36 days each.
In the state of research and technical data collected, the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), responsible for technical investigation, believes that the failure rate pitot probes is one of the causes of the accident but not alone may be the cause of the disaster.
"These indictments likely Airbus and Air France are not an end in itself, but they allow a more adversarial," said a leader of the Association of Mutual Aid and Solidarity AF447 victims, Jean-Baptiste Audousset .
Morice me but mentioned "a number of obstacles" encountered, he said, by the investigators. "Judges who launched a commission faced procedural obstacles," he said, pointing to "agencies" responsible "in Germany of aviation rules and want to play European immunities."
