An appeals court in France has found Airbus and Air France guilty of involuntary manslaughter, for the companies' roles in a 2009 plane crash that killed 228 people.

According to The New York Times, the Paris Appeals Court overturned a decision from a lower court in 2023, that had acquitted the manufacturer and the airline. Additionally, the court fined each company €225,000 ($260,000), and ordered them to pay legal costs.

The crash occurred on June 1, 2009, when Air France Flight 447 was caught in a thunderstorm over the Atlantic Ocean on its way to Rio de Janeiro from Paris. During the storm, a buildup of ice caused a malfunction in the plane's airspeed sensor. That malfunction disconnected the autopilot and incorrectly told the pilots to pull the plane's nose up, when in fact they should have pointed it down. Minutes later, the jet went into a free-fall and crashed into the ocean, killing everyone on board. 

An investigation released three years later revealed how the pilots of the Airbus A330 struggled to regain control of the plane in the chaos of multiple flashing alarms. Regulators blamed the warning system for being poorly designed, as well as the training the pilots received beforehand. In court, prosecutors also claimed that Airbus hadn't given airlines the necessary information regarding how pilots should handle certain equipment malfunctions, and that Air France hadn't adequately trained its crews.

The lower court ruling that had initially acquitted Airbus and Air France had ruled that both companies had demonstrated "imprudence" and negligence," but that there wasn't enough evidence to indicate whether the crash actually could have been avoided. It's unclear whether either company will appeal this latest ruling.