On the morning of Friday January 1, 1965, the front page of La Tribune – Le Progrès reported the tragedy and spoke of a “hallucinatory collision in the sky of Haute-Loire”. Photo archives La Tribune – Le Progrès
“Hallucinating collision in the sky of Haute-Loire”. This is the title that crosses the front page of The Tribune – Progresson the morning of Friday January 1, 1965. The day before, the last day of 1964 opened with a real air tragedy which struck the Mézenc massif, on the roof of Haute-Loire.
“It was around 9 o'clock when Mr. Pierre Defay, who was near his farm, isolated on the snowy slopes of Mézenc, had his attention attracted by three jet fighter planes which were carrying out an exercise. They moved at high speed above the meadows and woods covered by a thick layer of snow,” says our journalist Jean Chervalier, in charge of the news that day. “Suddenly, two of the hunters, who were crossing paths, collided with incredible violence.”
The two pilots discovered strapped to their seats
The shock was terrible, setting the sky ablaze above Mézenc and L'Alambre. “The two aircraft, helpless, plunged towards the ground. One crashed on the plateau of La Croix-de-Peccata, above Les Estables. The second plane fell in the woods some 200 meters from the first, on the slope of Chaudeyrolles.
At the scene of the double crash, a terrifying spectacle awaits the first witnesses of the accident. At La Croix-de-Peccata, where the first plane fell, a 15-meter crater opened. The plane literally broke apart, “scattering its debris for hundreds of meters around”. The second plane, for its part, caught fire after uprooting fir trees. “The fire was visible from Saint-Front, 15 kilometers away, and only the thick snow prevented the forest from being set ablaze.”
For the two pilots, Lieutenant Jacques Albert and Staff Sergeant Guy Flamant, it is already too late. “They were found strapped to their seats, several dozen meters from where their plane had crashed.”
Leaves from Germany for Tunisia
The planes that fell on New Year's Eve 1964 on the Mézenc were Super Saber F-100s from the French NATO forces. These planes are known to be the first generations of American supersonic fighters, capable of flying at nearly 1,400 km/h.
They had taken off from the Lahr military base, in western Germany (Baden region) and were to head to the south of Tunisia for training shots.
For several decades, the names of the two soldiers killed on the slopes of Mézenc were visible on a stele in the town of Augny (Moselle) remembering all the pilots who died in commanded air service on the Super Saber F-100.
Dantesque conditions
In this part of Haute-Loire, imprisoned by winter, the alert must be raised immediately. In Chaudeyrolles, the telephone is at the mayor's house, at the Chantemerle farm. The elected official immediately notifies the police. But already, several hundred kilometers away, in the Rhône valley, we have been informed of the disaster: the pilot of the third plane, witness to the tragedy, has just brought his plane back to the Orange air base and explained what just happened.
While an army helicopter went to the site to recover the remains of the two pilots, on the ground, the emergency response took place in dire conditions. “The intervention of the firefighters and the police was seriously hampered by the layer of snow exceeding 50 centimeters and the violent gusts which lifted it. The snow plow itself, which opened the way for the fire truck, had to abandon the game, and it was on foot that the rescuers were able to reach, at the cost of many difficulties, the scene of the disaster. A few days later, a Sikorsky helicopter, mobilized to transport a commission of inquiry to the scene, even found itself grounded by the storm and could not take off again…
One of the most significant dramas of the Burle Triangle
Difficulties which, however, do not prevent onlookers from flocking. To the point of requiring the establishment of a security service and having to mobilize the troops of the 86th infantry regiment of Puy-en-Velay to detain the curious and freeze the scene of the crash. It must be said that the planes, two Super Saber F-100s, were armed with 20 mm shells and machine gun bullets.
This catastrophe of December 31, 1964 remains, with the crashes of Jaujac and Mézilhac, one of the most significant tragedies of the disastrous Burle Triangle. On the roof of the department, the year 1964 ends in sadness. While in the cottages we are preparing to celebrate the new year, “the muffler of one of the pilots, hung at La Croix-de-Peccata by one of the soldiers from the helicopter who came to collect the bodies, floats in the Mézenc wind. It is the standard of mourning and remembrance.”
