Not sure if this was a commercial flight or private flight, mods can choose to move it to general aviation.
Happened this morning, accident sequence was captured on a dashcam. R.I.P.
By: TomcatViP - 13th November 2016 at 22:38
Aircraft was loaned to a Luxemburg based company (CAE) owned by a Fr national with good ties in this business. The company own a small fleet of GP aircraft dedicated to the needs of the French services. Most of its civilian pilots are retiree of the Air component of the DGSE, making them de-facto a covert DGSE airline such as was Air America in its time.
The Metroliner was bought modified on the US used market. It is said that modifications included ISR and radio communication monitoring systems*. Since the airframe was retired already modified in the US, I am sure a representative list of its systems might be found in the press.
At the time of the crash, the aircraft was piloted by two Ex-DGSE pilots with three DGSE personnel in the cabin making it one of single heaviest acknowledged loss of the Fr secret service in recent years.
In the Mil thread I pointed towed a controversy raised by the DGA at the time of the contract attribution regarding the lack of professionalism in maintenance records for this company.
The aircraft itself had more than 50 registered catastrophic incidents in the last 40 years.
Following the crash, all CAE’s planes were grounded on technical grounds.
In French:
L’appareil, qui s’est écrasé lundi, est immatriculé, lui, aux États-Unis et appartient à une société luxembourgeoise CAE Aviation créé par un polytechnicien français, fils de général, qui met à disposition des États qui le souhaitent, sa flotte d’avions spécialisés pour des missions de surveillance et de reconnaissance lorsque les moyens militaires de ces pays sont pris de court. Et il loue même des avions pour des opérations aéroportées «gouvernementales». Ces avions ne portent d’ailleurs aucune mention nationale sur leurs ailes. Des appareils dits «mercenaires».
Seule certitude, l’appareil de construction américaine parti en vrille à peine envolé, un Fairchild Metroliner Mark 3, a une réputation détestable. Il fait partie des avions dits «cercueil volant» car il a connu pas moins de 50 crashs recensés en 41 ans d’exploitation.
CAE Aviation est un fournisseur habituel des renseignements français, mais aussi de l’OTAN ou de l’Union européenne. Depuis le crash de Malte, les neuf avions que la société loue à la DGSE et à la direction du Renseignement militaire (DRM) en France sont cloués au sol pour des vérifications techniques.
Source:
Le Parisien.com
L’un de ces trois derniers hommes, âgé de 33 ans, sera inhumé très prochainement dans une grande ville de l’ouest de la France. Il était spécialisé dans le renseignement et la guerre électronique (recherche par imagerie).
By: J Boyle - 11th November 2016 at 00:22
Any idea what the French Secret Service were doing (COMINT, ELINT?)…and why they’d have a US registered aircraft, (other than it makes a good cover, most conspiracy theorists would assume it’s CIA)?
By: TomcatViP - 26th October 2016 at 02:53
Some more info in the Mil news thread including info sourced in the Fr press.
Crash vid would point toward some command lockup/ failure or dramatic CG shift IMO.
By: Newforest - 24th October 2016 at 13:29
As reported in the Mirror. R.I.P.
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October 24, 2016 at 10:45 am