Airbus and Air France pleaded have not guilty to manslaughter at the start of a new two-month trial over France's worst air disaster, 16 years after a Paris-bound jet crashed into the Atlantic, killing all passengers and crew.

A French court cleared both companies of corporate manslaughter in 2023, following a historic public trial over the loss of Air France flight 447, which vanished from radar screens while en route from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009.

Prosecutors appealed the outcome and families of many of the victims have pledged to fight to establish criminal wrongdoing in weeks of technical expert evidence to be reviewed in the Paris appeals court between now and late November.

Dozens of relatives rose in unison and stood in silent mourning as a French appeals judge read out the

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