The accident of Yemenia Flight 626 occurred on June 30, 2009. The flag carrier of the Republic of Yemen operated the flight with an Airbus A310.
The airline was put on trial in Paris in May and June, thirteen years later. The French correctional court decided to sentence it with the legal maximum, fining it 225,000 euros. Le Progres reports that the judges found the company «guilty of manslaughter and bodily harm». In addition, it will have to pay more than one million euros in lawyers’ fees and damages to two associations.
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In the accident, the Airbus A310-324 operated by Yemenia fell into the Indian Ocean off the island of Grande Comore after attempting to approach Prince Said Ibrahim Airport in the middle of a storm. The investigation determined the primary cause was pilot error: «inappropriate crew actions led to an unrecoverable stall». Among other reasons, the final report noted that the crew decided to continue the approach despite not being stabilized, which activated several aircraft alarms.
The ground proximity warning, misconfiguration, and stall alerts were activated. The crew, being focused on flying the approach, did not respond adequately to these alerts. The aircraft was to land on runway 02; however, it continued beyond the final approach fix, veered north, stalled, and crashed into the sea.
The accident killed 152 people, including 66 French nationals. The only survivor was a 12-year-old girl named Bahia Bakari, who was found floating clinging to a piece of the plane thirteen hours later.
