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Rescue operation on a beach in Comoros after the plane crash in 2009
Photo: Sayyid Azim/AP
The catastrophe was more than a decade ago, but the responsibilities and omissions in the crash of Yemenia Flight 626 on June 30, 2009 while approaching the Comoros have not yet been fully clarified.
A trial in Paris is now to determine whether the airline is to blame for the crash that killed 152 people.
At a trial in Paris, the airline is accused of negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm.
There are 560 joint plaintiffs, as the court announced.
65 of the victims were French, mostly from the Comoros.
They had flown from Paris and Marseille to the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, where they boarded the plane to the East African island state of Comoros.
Hundreds of relatives of the victims took part on the first day of the trial, many connected from Marseille.
Airbus crashed into the sea in poor visibility
Shortly before landing at the airport in the capital Moroni, the Airbus A310 crashed into the Indian Ocean in bad weather.
Only a 12-year-old survived the crash for 10 hours in the water with minor injuries because she was wearing a life jacket and clinging to a piece of wreckage.
According to reports, the 25-year-old wants to testify in the process (read the descriptions of the survivors here).
The French civil aviation authority BEA later saw evidence of pilot error as the cause.
The airline itself is also accused of oversights: Yemenia is said not only to have trained its pilots poorly, but also to have maintained night flights to Moroni, even though there were repeated problems with the lighting at the airport.
Airline representatives cannot come
Yemeni representatives were not present because of the war in their country.
Her lawyer Léon-Lef Forster spoke of some problems and mistakes, which are not to be blamed on the airline.
He will disclose this at the hearings.
Yemenia faces a fine of 225,000 euros if convicted.
fek/dpa/AFP