Air France cockpit voice recorder vital to case, appeal court rules

TORONTO – Ontario’s highest court says the Transportation Safety Board must hand over the cockpit voice recorder of an Air France plane that burned after overshooting a runway in Toronto.

Some passengers were injured but no lives were lost when the plane landed at Pearson International Airport on Aug. 2, 2005, in a severe thunderstorm, went into a ravine and burned.

NAV Canada, which is responsible for air traffic control at the airport, is a defendant in two lawsuits arising from the incident.

NAV Canada alleges that the Air France pilots were negligent in the way they approached the runway and landed the aircraft that night and says the cockpit recorder is vital to proving its case.

The lower court judge ruled that the contents of the voice recorder, which are deemed privileged and not required to be produced in any legal proceeding, are of incalculable value in the investigation of the accident.

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in a decision released Friday that failure to order production of the cockpit recorder makes an unjust result more likely.

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