she is the first female helicopter pilot for the SAMU

Here is the incredible story of Marielle Simon, the first civilian SAMU pilot in France. An extraordinary journey for this air enthusiast. A plane and helicopter pilot, she also transported VIPs, fought fires and was even the victim of a hostage situation. Encounter.

His life is a novel, or almost! In 2001, Marielle Simon became the first female helicopter pilot for the SAMU. But her journey also led her to transport VIPs on the Côte d’Azur, to support firefighters and Canadian air crews in the fight against fires and even to find herself at the heart of a hostage-taking which could have very go wrong.

As a student, Marielle began with a year of medicine, then studied chemistry, but the sky always attracted her. She then lived in Haute-Savoie and she often observed, like birds, the ascents and descents of helicopters: “No one stole in my family back then. I started training to fly small planes and one thing led to another, my passion became my profession”.

She trained as a private pilot, plane and helicopter, becoming a professional pilot and helicopter instructor in 1992. Same in 1993-1994, but for planes. She then took the theoretical airline pilot diploma in 2000 and obtained the Airbus 320 qualification in 2008.

As soon as she completed her helicopter diploma training, she was asked to become a private pilot, with missions in the south of France to provide connections: “The flights don’t last long, but the spots are different each time, that’s what I like about this job. The difference with a plane is that you don’t have to use the runway to take off and land. Flying a helicopter is more fun than a plane. And then it’s also the most office in the world, the sky“.

For the record, know that she spent two seasons on board commercial planes, “but I had to prove, almost every time, that I deserved my place as a woman.”

Smiling and discreet, Marielle Simon is also a determined person. She wants to join the ranks of helicopter pilots for the SAMU: “It’s my Saint Bernard side, the desire to be useful, to go quickly to save lives… Flying large planes is more commercial, there is less of a team concept.”. Because that’s what she likes, flying in a team, even if at the controls of the helicopter, she is the only one to decide.

It’s not easy to become a pilot for the SAMU; at the time, in the early 2000s, it took 1,500 hours of flight and with connections between two cities or two sites which were often short, it took many years to get there. But she succeeded, and in 2001 became the first female pilot for the SAMU.

It is the pilot, and he alone, who decides whether he can accomplish the mission.

Marielle Simon, helicopter pilot

Marielle explains: “You never know what the day will bring. At the SAMU, we have a series of days of duty, generally seven days, seven nights in a row. Decision making is very important. It is the pilot, and he alone, who decides whether he can accomplish the mission. So as not to influence us, we are not told the content of the mission, whether it is a man, a woman, a child, nor the urgency, especially when we have to choose between one flight and another.”

“It can also be a transfer from hospital to hospital, she continues. The pilot must make his decision based on the weather and the flight conditions, because we often fly visually.“Marielle specifies that in the event of refusal, the patient may be evacuated by road (Editor’s note: which was more difficult when it was based in Créteil, due to traffic jams around the capital).

On each outing, it’s the same scenario: the pre-flight check of the helicopter and the decision to take off or not: “LDecision-making can sometimes take longer if you are called at night. Often, we sleep, we have to take out the helicopter, which means that there can be 3 to 15 minutes of time between the call and takeoff. But you see, it’s still very fast.“

The time when she transported tourists and VIPs to the Côte d’Azur is long gone… Even today, she is at the service of the medical teams with whom she enjoys working: “We are a team, we have a common mission, certainly in a cramped space, but our goal is to save lives“There are sometimes very difficult cases,”it’s our universe and it brings us back to what we are, humans“.

She is often asked, when she is on ground intervention, where the pilot is, and she of course has plenty of anecdotes to tell! But his job also gave him big scares.

>>> Watch or rewatch the show Hauts Féminin with Marielle Simon, by clicking on the image.

Let’s go back to 2001. Marielle, then a private pilot, carried out first flights for her company. It’s a Sunday in May, Mother’s Day. As his passengers disembark for the scheduled visit to an abbey in Yvelines, three men dressed in black arrive and one of them says to him: “You’re out of luck! Usually, it’s men, and today it’s on you. You’re going to play the air girl”.

I didn’t want to die, I wanted to see my children again!

Marielle Simon, helicopter pilot

Proof that they did scouting before D-Day. With a gun pointed at her head, she is forced to take off. “At that moment, it was my survival instinct that made me act. I didn’t want to die, I wanted to see my children again“. The passengers remaining on the ground alerted her employer, who notified the police who called the Créteil SAMU to warn them. Her husband, also a helicopter pilot, works there, and it is he who receives the phone call He will experience this event from the outside, with a lot of anxiety and waiting.

Marielle, at the controls of the device, must go to Fresnes prison, because the individuals who boarded want to escape a prisoner. They tell him not to wear headphones or radio. Once there, things don’t go quite as planned. From the watchtower, shots are fired at the helicopter, the men return fire, throwing a bag with bulletproof vests and weapons. The person sitting behind Marielle is injured, there is barely 30 cm between the two of them!

That day, at the helicopter, it was game over. I always say I had an extra bullet!

Marielle Simon, helicopter pilot

At this very moment, she is hovering with her helicopter, something hanging underneath, not knowing what it is (she later finds out that it was a rope with a ladder attached). She remembers:My legs, I admit, played castanets and I then acted as captain by telling them: “ Stop, you won’t make it, you have to leave, go and settle down.”“. This is what she does, she lands in a stadium in the town of L’Haÿ-les-Roses where the individuals handcuff her to her helicopter: “CThat day, at the helicopter, it was game over. I always say I had an extra bullet“.

For the little anecdote, her employer at the time asked her, when he knew that she was unharmed, if she could still accomplish her next mission: to go find Luc Besson. Of course, she answered no, because in addition to the questions from the police that needed to be answered, the helicopter was broken, with a hole in the cabin!

“I love changing places, the richness of our job is that we have lots of possibilities“. This is how a few years ago, in 2017, Marielle Simon found herself in a helicopter airline under contract with civil security. Here she is in Salon-de-Provence putting out fires .

We don’t have many opportunities to interact with other pilots in emergency missions.

Marielle Simon, helicopter pilot

Marielle specifies: “We work with a firefighter on duty and we are triggered for what we call a small fire strike, before the arrival of the canadairs. The helicopters then do the finishing work. I have incredible memories of this experience, of the training before going into the field, of the experience shared with other pilots, like those of the French patrol, based in Salon, because we don’t doesn’t have many opportunities to interact with other pilots in emergency missions.“

She remembers the welcome from the population when she landed not far from the fire, the applause… She then served twelve days in a row, and returned home for the same period. Because Marielle and her husband did everything to preserve their family life and never moved.

When you have parents who are both pilots, the children’s lives (they have two sons) can sometimes be a little disrupted, Marielle emphasizes: “It wasn’t easy every day, my parents were an extraordinary support. We even took on an au pair for two years, and I put my career aside for a while. However, I dreamed that I flew like a bird at night !”.

She was a ground stewardess at Roissy, worked nights for the Aéropostale, but the call from heaven was stronger. If Marielle confides to me that her sons have never been destabilized by their jobs, the youngest, who was one and a half years old when his mother was taken hostage, asked at the age of eight to see a psychologist. It was of course this traumatic event that stood out.

Today, they are 28 and 25 years old, one wanted to devote his life to sport, the second was heading towards a business school. Guess what they do? They are both airline pilots! “So our careers really haven’t bothered them at all! (laughs).

While Marielle Simon is going to leave her post at the SAMU in Arras, heading to that of Haute-Savoie, (Editor’s note: at the time we spoke, she was in full training, because she is going to pilot a new helicopter)she ends by saying: “You have to follow the dream to the end, even if the journey can be difficult, chaotic, it is worth all the sacrifices“.