FLIGHT AF 3532 AIR FRANCE (IN JANUARY 28, 1994)
This flight assures the connection Nice -
London.
At 13. 14, while they are in flight of cruise for the height of 11900
m, in the neighborhood of Coulommiers in Seine-et-Marne, by excellent
weather conditions, the leader steward, then present in the cockpit,
indicates a phenomenon appearing to him to be a meteorological
balloon. The observation is immediately confirmed by the co-pilot.
The pilot, who sees it in his turn, thinks first of all that it is
about a plane in bend in 45 ° of slope. Very quickly however,
all the three agree to notice that what they see looks like nothing
of it that they know. The excellent visibility and the presence of
altocumulus allow to the pilot to consider that the phenomenon is for
the height of 10 500 m and at a distance about 50 km. Considering the
visible diameter, they deduct from it that the machine is tall. They
are struck by the changes of shape of the machine which appears to
them first of all under the aspect of a bell of brown color, before
being transformed into lens of color brown - chestnut, then
disappearing on the left of the device in a quasi-immediate way, as
if it had become suddenly invisible.
The pilot reports in the center of control of the aviation of Reims
which has no information about any presence of air motive in the
neighborhood. However, in application of the existing procedure,
Reims informs the centre of operations of the air defence TAVERNY'S (
CODA) of the observation made by the crew and asks to the pilot to
apply from the landing the procedure "Airmiss ". CODA registered
effectively at the same moment a radar track introduced by the
mission control of corresponding Cinq-Mars-la-Pile in place and in
the hour to the observed phenomenon. This radar track, which was
recorded during 50 seconds, crosses well the trajectory of the flight
AF 3532 and corresponds to no deposited flight plan.
It is necessary to note that the phenomenon disappears at the same
moment in the sight of the crew and the scopes radar. The
investigations led by CODA allow at the same moment to exclude the
hypothesis of the meteorological balloon and to know the precise
distance of crossing of both trajectories and consequently to return
to 250 m of length the rough size of the machine. It is to note that
the regional centre of the aviation ( CRNA) North, which handles 3000
movements a day, educated only three cases, among which that of the
flight AF 3532, in the last seven years.
C Hunting pilot (in March 3, 1976)
C Pilot of Mirage IV (in March 7, 1977)