A serious accident between two bursts of French army aircraft occurred this Wednesday afternoon in the skies over Lorraine. 20 Minutes takes stock of this extremely rare event.
What happened
Two fighter jets from the Rafale Transformation Squadron at the Saint-Dizier air base (Haute-Marne) collided over a wooded area in the Colombey-les-Belles sector (Meurthe-et-Moselle), 35 km southwest of Nancy, in Lorraine. “The accident occurred around 12:30 p.m. (…) on the return from a resupply mission in Germany,” clarified on X the communication of the Air Force.
The pilot of one of the two aircraft ejected before impact. He is out of danger. However, the instructor and student pilot who were in the second aircraft have been missing ever since. The army told AFP that all the pilots involved were French nationals. Ukrainian pilots are currently being trained in France, but at the Cazaux base (Gironde) and only on Alpha Jet fighters.
First accounts of the circumstances of the collision
While the Meurthe-et-Moselle prefecture has opened a special number (09.70.80.90.40) to collect testimonies, the first accounts from residents are already known.
Karine Legendre, a mother who was driving, told AFP that she had “seen three balls of fire falling from the sky.” “And then we saw a huge black smoke. It scared me, I wondered what it could be.” “There were people walking in the woods, people were turning around, leaving the woods, they looked panicked. I deduced that the planes fell nearby. I turned around myself and saw the firefighters arriving,” she testified.
“I was eating, a plane flew over me, it was heading north, there was like an explosion and it caught fire,” explained Laëtitia, a resident of Autreville (Vosges). “It fell on the woods, it crashed, near the road to Colombey-les-Belles. I only saw a plane. It made a huge black cloud (…) It was impressive,” she confided.
How are searches and rescues organized?
All the roads between Colombey-les-Belles, Autreville and Harmonville, two communes in the Vosges, are blocked by the police, noted AFP journalists, who saw a criminal identification vehicle, helicopters and drones pass by, in a wooded and rural area dominated by a high-voltage line, some of whose cables appear to be cut.
“We are really in a very large area,” said the mayor of Colombey-les-Belles, Benjamin Voinot, about the search perimeter. According to the departmental fire and rescue service (Sdis) of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 54 firefighters are working. Some 200 gendarmes are engaged in the departments of Meurthe-et-Moselle, Vosges and Meuse, as well as a helicopter and four drones, according to the gendarmerie.
A very rare accident?
Accidents involving Rafales are relatively rare. On 7 December 2007, an unarmed Rafale crashed near Neuvic (Corrèze) after diving down from 4,000 metres. This was the first accident involving a Rafale. The investigation concluded that the pilot had suffered “spatial disorientation”.
And on September 24, 2009, an accident between two Rafales occurred as they were preparing to join the aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle, at the end of a training flight and a maximum weight catapult test. One of the pilots died in the accident.
Concerning this new accident, the army has opened a technical and administrative investigation. Another, which will take several months, will be entrusted to the State Aviation Safety Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA-E). A judicial investigation should also be opened.