TESTIMONIAL - For Europe 1, Thierry Loine, an air safety officer at the Nîmes-Garons base, talks about the memory of his friend Franck Chesneau and talks about the accident that killed the pilot on Friday.

DOCUMENT EUROPE 1

He arrived at the Gard fire station in Générac in tears. Thierry Loine was a very close friend of Franck Chesneau, who died Friday in the crash of his water bomber, while trying to extinguish one of the fires that ravaged the region for five days. "I lose a friend, a brother in arms," ​​he told Europe 1, still under the influence of emotion.

"We came back in the army almost the same year, and it was 27 years that we followed each other in our respective careers", reports this air security officer of the base of Nîmes-Garons, who also flies on Trackers , these bi-turboprop engines generally used on fire departures, before the intervention of the canadairs. "It's been a long time since that happened, I think we're getting used to those tough times," he slips.

"We know that we do risky trades, that we are professionals, we are trained for that, and well trained.We are not crazy dogs, but when we are confronted with this type of danger, triggered by human stupidity, is raging, "says Thierry Loine, while the authorities favor the criminal track as to the origin of the fires.

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A source close to the investigation told AFP Saturday that the deceased driver may have been "victim of a loss of landmark", caused in particular by the very dark smoke that emanated from the fire. "The difficulty of this job is that you are alone in an airplane, you do not have any flying aids, it's really aeronautics to grandpa", explains Thierry Loine, still at the microphone of Europe 1.

"It is piloting instinct in an aerology [all the meteorological conditions of the lower atmosphere, ed ] which is always different because the fire creates its own wind, because these fires are never the same, neither the temperatures ", details this pilot. "This is a permanent challenge, which is what makes the difficulty and the beauty of our profession."

Thierry Loine still describes Franck Chesneau as "a man with a big heart". "He was always ready to help, he had a sense of sacrifice, of self-denial, all the values ​​that I think are essential in this profession, they carried them very high, and that is the memory that I will keep of him." he concluded.