Washington: A French appeals court has cleared Continental Airlines of criminal responsibility for the Air France Concorde crash that killed 113 people in 2000.
Continental Airlines, which has since merged with United Airlines, had appealed a 2010 ruling that blamed the company and one of its mechanics for the crash of Flight 4590 shortly after takeoff from Paris.
The appeals court upheld the findings of a lower court that a strip of metal that fell off a Continental jet was responsible for the crash, CNN reports.
The appeals court, however, said that a criminal conviction was not justified, CNN affiliate BFM-TV reported.
As the appeals court agreed with the findings of what led to the crash, the U.S. airline will still pay more than 1.2 million dollars (1 million euros) to Air France as ordered by the lower court, BFM-TV reported.
Air France has paid an unspecified sum in damages to the families of most of the victims of the only Concorde crash, the report added.
ANI
