The pilot of the water bomber who died in the crash of his plane trying to extinguish the fire Générac in the Gard, Friday would have "lost its bearings" in the thick smoke, learned AFP Saturday source close to the survey.
He has "entered a very dark cloud"
"The assumption is that the pilot was the victim of a loss of mark," said this source. "The pilot, who was in a descending phase, entered a very thick column of smoke and hit the treetops," she added. "It's a problem of estimating the pilot who has entered a very dark cloud and lost his bearings," she continued.
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The man in his fifties was father of two children. His plane, a tracker 22 of the civil security, crashed Friday at 5:20 pm while trying to extinguish the fire of Générac, where more than 800 hectares of forests went up in smoke since Tuesday.
A "French hero" according to Emmanuel Macron
More than 300 hectares were smoked Friday in a few hours, after the 500 hectares burned Tuesday and Wednesday. Between eight and ten almost simultaneous fire starts, between 14:30 and 15:00, were recorded Friday by relief south of Nîmes, between Saint-Gilles and Vauvert. Among them, this new start in Générac, still on the edge of the D14, as for the fire on Tuesday, fire for which the prosecutor Nimes, Eric Maurel, had clearly favored the criminal track Thursday. The investigation of the plane crash was entrusted to the research section of the gendarmerie of Nîmes. A few hours after the tragedy, Emmanuel Macron reacted on Twitter, describing the pilot as "French hero".