Families of the victims of the AIR ASIA QZ 8501 air crash which took place the 28th of December 2014 in the Java Sea just accomplished an important step in their quest of justice.

The French Supreme Court decided on the 28th of November 2018 that the liability of the French manufacturers AIRBUS and its provider ARTUS was not disputable, and that they had to compensate the bereaved families.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court squashes the lower Court (Court of Appeal of Angers) which deemed that because AIR ASIA’s errors in the maintenance was also amongst the causes of the crash it impeded the Court to consider that the obligation of the manufacturers to compensate the victims was undisputable.

“deciding as so, because a third party would have participated to the causes of the accident, and because the manufacturers would have ignored the lack of reliability of the disputed module, although the Court had noted that the defect of the module was amongst the causes of the crash, the court has violated the applicable texts in deciding that the liability of the manufacturers was not be undisputable”

In short the Supreme Court holds the manufacturers liable, and sends back the case to the lower Court for the victims to be compensated.