French court acquits defendants in Airbus crash trial
A court in north-eastern France has acquitted all six defendants, including former aviation officials and an ex-Airbus executive, in a trial over a plane crash in 1992 that killed 87 people near the German border.
Prosecutors alleged the plane was to blame.
The six defendants had been on trial since May on manslaughter charges. They faced up to 2 years in prison and €4,500 in fines.
Prosecutors had alleged the plane was to blame, though the causes of the accident remained unclear.
An Airbus A320 belonging to Air Inter, a now-defunct domestic airline, crashed on January 20, 1992, on a Lyon-to-Strasbourg flight as it prepared to land.
Nine people survived. Eighty-seven people were killed.
The investigation into conflicting theories dragged on for years before the trial began at last in May, in an exhibition hall in the city of Colmar set up for the proceedings.
