Were the two pilots of the A310 which crashed in the Indian Ocean on June 29, 2009 sufficiently trained?
The question was the subject of technical debates on Monday May 16 at the trial in Paris of the Yemenia company, which operated this flight which cost the lives of 152 people.
Read also Thirteen years later, the Yemenia crash judged in France
Investigations concluded that the disaster, which left only one 12-year-old survivor, was caused by a series of crew errors when approaching Moroni airport, capital of the Comoros.
"lacunate" training
The Yemeni national company is on trial for a month for manslaughter and involuntary injury, suspected, in particular, of having provided “
incomplete
” training to the pilot and co-pilot – “
shortcomings
” which it disputes as a whole.
At the start of the second week of the trial, two aeronautical experts, mandated during the investigation, returned to the bar to react to three new consultations produced by Yemenia's lawyers.
From these expert opinions commissioned by the defence, based on "
five binders
" of documents transmitted at the end of the judicial information, the company's lawyers endeavor to sow doubt by presenting a thesis, summarized at the turn of a question: "
it's a fault of piloting, not a fault of the company
".
"Mesh of the net"
At the helm, the experts repeat: the co-pilot's training was abnormally long - one year, an "
unthinkable
" duration and a sign of "
fragilities
".
He may have slipped through "
the cracks
" of Yemenia's internal selection system, they suggest.
The defense consultation with a trainer on the A310 does not, however, mention this duration and insists on the "
human factor
": acute "
stress
" which could have been caused by very difficult weather conditions.
"
Stress cannot explain everything
," replied the witnesses, themselves pilots and trainers.
"
The purpose of training, training, is precisely to arm the pilots to resist stress and not to suffer, with serious consequences, external elements, such as turbulence, the weather, the malfunction of an aircraft
" , they explain.
Read alsoYemenia crash: towards a dismissal
'No evidence' of training
In the company, there are traces of these stress training, grouped under the acronym "
CRM
" (cockpit resource management) - but "
we do not have the details
", underline the experts.
That evening, due to the force of the wind, the aircraft was forced into a more delicate approach maneuver.
Did the pilots have specific training at Moroni airport, classified as difficult due to its proximity to the relief of a volcano?
A document, projected at the hearing, acts well that the pilots made, as part of their course, the round trip from Sanaa, in Yemen - the same route as the evening of the accident, underlines the defense.
But “
we have no document which proves to us that the crews were trained
” on the spot, note the experts.
"Prejudice"
The defense also produced a weather consultation.
"
In the five months preceding the accident
", the wind only "
twice
" exceeded thirty knots (55 km/h), summarizes a Yemenia lawyer: "
Did you suddenly do you agree that this night was exceptional?
"
It was a rougher night than usual
," admits an expert.
However, according to him, the conditions remained "
good
": at the altitude where the plane was flying, there was "
ten kilometers of visibility, but it was three, four kilometers from the landing strip
".
"
The flight was turbulent
" but "
I think it happened to us thousands of times to have turbulent flights, it's not exceptional
", he sweeps.
As the questions go by, another question remains: was the company aware that the lights signaling the obstacles around the airport had been out of order for five months – which should have forced it to stop night flights?
Read alsoYemenia crash trial: the violence of the accident on the bodies
"
We can't prove (it) but it seems obvious to us that all of the stakeholders, the company, the airport, somehow took pleasure in this degraded state of the lights
", sums up one of the witnesses.
"
It's a prejudice, you have no proof of that
," said a defense lawyer.
"
It's a strong presumption
," prefers the expert.