Paris appeals court finds Airbus, Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter over 2009 crash

Three newly qualified Irish doctors, who graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2007, were returning from a holiday in Brazil when they were killed in the crash

Workers unloading debris, belonging to crashed Air France flight AF447, from the Brazilian Navy's Constitution Frigate in the port of Recife, northeast of Brazil, Sunday, June 14, 2009. Picture: AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File

A Paris appeals court on Thursday found Airbus and Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter over the 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash that killed 228 passengers and crew ​in France's worst air disaster.

The verdict is the latest milestone in a legal marathon involving two ​of France's most emblematic companies and relatives of the mainly French, Brazilian and ⁠German victims.