The French judiciary has announced that its investigation of the 27 November 2008 fatal accident involving an Airbus A320 on a post-maintenance test flight will not result in the prosecution of any of the parties involved.
At this stage, however, the prosecutor's office at Perpignan, the southern French city from whose airport the aircraft was operating, has declined to reveal in detail how the prosecutor reached his decision.
The technical investigation is expected to have been completed by the French air accident investigator BEA by the end of this year. The leased A320 was being operated by Germany-based XL Airways on a post-maintenance test flight before handing it back to owner Air New Zealand.
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At the controls were two XL Airways pilots, and the remaining crew consisted of four personnel from Air New Zealand and a New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority inspector. All on board were killed when the aircraft went out of control during a low speed handling test that was carried out at about 3,000ft (915m) during the aircraft's descent toward Perpignan airport. The twinjet crashed into the Mediterranean Sea just off the French coast.
Perpignan prosecutor Dominique Alzeari has told local journalists that the report refers to "an inappropriate test, in unsuitable conditions, with a manoeuvre carried out in an unprepared manner which made it more dangerous".
This description tallies with the BEA's factual narrative in its interim report published in 2009. Alzeari also said that malfunctioning angle of attack sensors, possibly "linked to cleaning operations [during maintenance]" may have been a factor in the accident, but the accident was not caused by "a maintenance or design problem with the aircraft".
The decision not to prosecute is significant, if only because the French judiciary has decided to bring prosecutions following a significant proportion of major air accidents in France during the last 25 years, even though the outcome of the court cases is frequently acquittal for all parties.
The trial of five individuals prosecuted following the 2000 crash of an Air France Concorde near Paris Charles de Gaulle airport adjourned on 28 May after four months of proceedings. The court will reconvene in December at Pontoise, near Paris, for delivery of the verdicts.
Source: Flight International
