Alizé Marine association announces premature end of operations by its Breguet Br 1050

It has been announced that the sole airworthy Breguet Br 1050 Alizé is being grounded with almost immediate effect. Its owner the Alizé Marine association, is being forced out of its hangar at Nîmes by the municipal authority, which owns the airport and has not provided any alternative accommodation.

Offers to help have been made by French Navy bases elsewhere in southern France, but the association says it would be impractical to relocate for “technical, financial and logistical” reasons. In any case, it adds, Nîmes is where the Alizé — serial 59 — was based during its Aéronautique Navale service, meaning an all-important historical link would be severed. Therefore, the anti-submarine aeroplane is due to make its final flight on 29 April and be grounded effective the next day. Alizé Marine will hold an extraordinary general meeting, at which it will consider the possibility of liquidation.

The Alizé made its first post-restoration flight on the civil register, as F-AZYI, from Nîmes during May 2013. Since then the 1959-vintage Br 1050 has been operated widely at French airshows, not least in combinations of historic and modern French Navy types put together by the Cocardes Marine organisation. It has also appeared in the British Isles, first at the Jersey International Air Display and then, in 2019, the Royal Navy International Air Day at Yeovilton. It is very unlikely that another Alizé will ever be restored to flying condition.