The searches to find a tourist plane which disappeared at sea Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon off Fécamp (Seine-Maritime) were stopped Wednesday morning, we learned from the prefecture of Manche and from the North Sea. The aircraft, with only one person on board, had taken off from the Saint-André-de-l'Eure aerodrome (Eure) around 2:30 p.m. and was flying in the direction of Saint-Valéry-en-Caux (Seine-Maritime ) when it disappeared.
Several witnesses as well as the semaphore of Fécamp warned the Regional Operational Center for Surveillance and Rescue (Cross) Gris-Nez that a small aircraft had just crashed about two kilometers north-west of Fécamp. Searches to find it were carried out thanks to a Caïman helicopter of the Belgian Air Force stationed on the Koksijde air base and equipped with a thermal night vision camera, according to the maritime prefecture.
Investigation
"After having flown over the area several times, and without any new information, the maritime prefect of the English Channel and the North Sea decided to stop the searches around 11:20 pm," according to a press release. The search resumed on Wednesday at 8:52 am "with the engagement of the Dauphin helicopter of the French Navy (…) which flew over the area several times without finding anything new," said the prefecture in a new press release. . At 9 h 29, the prefect decided to stop the search operations, according to the same source.
An investigation is underway by the maritime gendarmerie and the air transport gendarmerie (GTA), also indicates the prefecture.
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