Europe1 .fr with AFP 15:38 pm, November 22, 2023

On July 27, 2018, a 40-year-old aeronautical engineer, a wingsuit enthusiast, was hit at an altitude of 4,000 meters by a wing of the plane from which he had just jumped ten seconds earlier. The pilot, a member of a parachuting club in Tarn-et-Garonne, was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence on Tuesday.

The criminal court of Montauban on Tuesday sentenced to a 12-month suspended prison sentence the pilot of a parachuting club in Tarn-et-Garonne who had decapitated the man who had just left his plane to wingsuit.

Found guilty of manslaughter and operating an aircraft without a valid aeronautical title, the former chief pilot of the Midi-Pyrénées Parachuting School, in Bouloc-en-Quercy (Tarn-et-Garonne), now retired, was also sanctioned with a one-year ban on flying.

'A lot of recklessness or negligence'

On July 27, 2018, Nicolas Galy, a 40-year-old aeronautical engineer and wingsuit enthusiast, was hit at an altitude of 4,000 meters by a wing of the plane from which he had just jumped ten seconds earlier. Wingsuit consists of jumping into the void in a winged soft jump suit before opening your parachute.

The Midi-Pyrénées Parachuting Association, which employed the pilot, was fined 20,000 euros, of which 10,000 were suspended. At the hearing on 19 September, the lawyer for the civil party Emmanuelle Franck deplored "a lot of imprudence or negligence".

Immediately after the drop, the pilot of the aircraft began his descent to the tarmac of the aerodrome. There had been no consultation before the jump on the trajectory to be followed. During the trial, the presiding judge had pointed to a lack of communication between the victim and the pilot.