Two pilots of a Rafale plane, an instructor and his student, lost their lives Wednesday afternoon after colliding with another Rafale in a wooded area of Meurthe-et-Moselle. The two fighter planes crashed near the town of Colombey-les-Belles. The pilot of the first Rafale ejected and was recovered with minor injuries by emergency services, but a large-scale search had been launched to find the occupants of the two-seater. The wreckage was finally spotted in the afternoon in the town of Harmonville (Vosges), six kilometers from Colombey-les-Belles, the ministry said.
“We learned with sadness of the deaths of Captain Sébastien Mabire and Lieutenant Matthis Laurens, during an air accident during a training mission in Rafale,” announced the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron on X (ex-Twitter) on Wednesday evening.
An experienced pilot and a trainee pilot
Who were the two men? Captain Sébastien Mabire had been an “instructor in the Rafale 3/4 “Aquitaine” transformation squadron since August 2022,” the Air Force said. He had been a fighter pilot “since 2013.” “He began his operational career in the 2/30 “Normandie-Niémen” fighter regiment.” Qualified as a patrol leader, he had logged “more than 2,000 flight hours and 47 combat missions, carried out as part of Operation Chammal” within the international coalition against Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Aged 36, he was from the Manche department, France Bleu specifies.
Lieutenant Matthis Laurens was a trainee. “A fighter pilot since 2021, he had been assigned to the Rafale within the 2/30 “Normandie-Niémen” fighter regiment since November 2023 and continued his training within the Rafale 3/4 “Aquitaine” transformation squadron.” Aged 29, he had logged more than 800 flight hours, according to the Air Force.
Ministerial tribute this Thursday
Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu will visit Air Base 113 in Saint-Dizier on Thursday for a non-press visit, the ministry said. “Like the Minister of the Armed Forces, the Chief of Staff of the Air and Space Force will visit the Saint-Dizier air base today to express the AAE’s solidarity with the families and brothers-in-arms of the missing pilots,” the press release from the Ministry of the Armed Forces said.
An investigation has been opened to try to determine the exact circumstances of this rare accident.