French court finds Swiftair guilty of corporate manslaughter over Mali crash

The Paris Criminal Court found Spanish ​company Swiftair guilty of corporate ​manslaughter on Monday over the ‌2014 crash ​of an Air Algerie flight that killed 116 people in northern Mali. Swiftair has denied the charges ‌and attempted to have the case halted on the grounds that it could not be tried in France because a Spanish court had already dropped the case.

However, ‌a French judge ordered the company to pay the maximum fine of €225,000 after ‌a three-week trial earlier this year over the crash of a Swiftair-owned MD-83 airliner. Swiftair, which has 10 days to appeal the ruling, did not immediately respond to a request for ⁠comment ​on Monday.

Air Algerie ⁠Flight AH5017 hit the ground less than an hour after it left the Burkinabe capital of ⁠Ouagadougou, killing everyone on board, about half of whom were French. Investigators said the aircraft ​went out of control when it was hit by ice as an ⁠anti-icing system remained switched off. Prosecutors alleged negligence in the way Swiftair pilots, operating the flight ⁠on ​behalf of Air Algerie, were trained to deal with icy conditions and erratic data readings.

Swiftair blamed shortcomings in regulation and manuals. In Monday's judgement, ⁠the court rejected some prosecution arguments about poor training but said the captain had ⁠not had a proper ⁠proficiency check and the crew had not had the required number of refresher flights after a period of inactivity.