Airbus and Air France were acquitted by French justice of charges of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 Rio-Paris flight accident, sparking outrage among the families of the 228 victims.

The French court noted that although there was evidence of misconduct, “no certain causal link (…) could be established” with the accident.

According to the verdict, the companies’ “mistakes” increased the likelihood of the accident, for which the French airline and manufacturer are “civilly responsible” for the damage.

“We expected an impartial verdict, this has not been the case. We are disgusted,” said Danièle Lamy, president of the association Entraide et Solidarité AF447, which represents the families of the victims.

“From these 14 years of waiting nothing remains but hopelessness, dismay and anger,” he added.

“They tell us: ‘Responsible but not guilty.’ And it is true that we expected the word ‘guilty’”, explained Alain Jakubowicz, lawyer of the association.

On June 1, 2009, a plane on a flight between Rio de Janeiro and Paris crashed over the Atlantic Ocean hours after takeoff. 216 passengers and 12 crew members died.

On board the aircraft, an A330, were passengers of 33 nationalities, including 61 French, 58 Brazilian, two Spanish and one Argentinian. The 12-man crew consisted of 11 Frenchmen and a Brazilian.

The verdict created high expectations, after a marathon procedure marked by conflicting opinions from the magistrates. At the end of the trial, which took place from October 10 to December 8, the prosecution requested the acquittal of both companies, as it was “impossible to prove their guilt”.

The black boxes revealed that the pilots were unable to stop the plane’s fall due to the freezing of the Pitot speed probes in the middle of the night. The court found that Airbus had committed “four carelessness or negligence”, in particular by not replacing the models of Pitot probes called “AA” in the A330 and A340 aircraft, which seemed to freeze more often and in recent months had defects.

The French manufacturer also reportedly withheld information from the airlines and, according to the court, should have updated its storage procedure.

Air France has committed two “imprudentities” regarding the modalities of dissemination of a precautionary note on probe freezing, addressed to its pilots.