On the 9th of September 1968, a Caravelle crashed over the Mediterranean killing 98 passengers, of which 13 were children. The cause of this crash has been disputed by the families and many many people throughout France. Most believe that it was hit in error by a missile which was fired from a nearby military base. For over to 50 years the families have been trying to get answers from the French Government.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/france-moves-to-lift-secrecy-on-deadly-1968-plane-crash http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/crash-du-vol-ajaccio-nice-en-1968-51-ans-apres-macron-demande-la-levee-du-secret-defense-20190910 The POPE sends a message to families on 50th anniversary https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/corse/corse-du-sud/ajaccio/pape-adresse-lettre-aux-familles-victimes-caravelle-ajaccio-nice-1538664.html Crash du vol Ajaccio-Nice en 1968: la justice exige la levée du secret défense (Le Figaro Article 05-04-2018)
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AFVCCANThe Paoli brothers set up AFVCCAN an association of the families of the victims. They have been fighting to find the truth for 51 years. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/10/flight-af1611-and-families-51-year-wait-for-truth-about-french-plane-crash 'We need to hear it': families' 51-year wait for truth about French plane crash (The Guardian 9/11/19 Kim Willsher) Air France flight 1611 plunged into sea off Nice – and relatives blame French navy exercise gone wrong Kim Willsher in Paris. 11 September 1968, the Irish bank manager Arthur O’Connor and 94 other people – including 13 children – boarded Air France flight 1611 from Ajaccio in Corsica to Nice in the south of France. O’Connor, 52, was heading back to Ballsbridge, Dublin, where he lived with his wife, Kathleen, and their four daughters, Margaret, Felicity, Derval and Serena, the eldest 20, the youngest just seven. At 10.33am, just off the Côte d’Azur and three minutes from landing, the Caravelle SE-210 aircraft disappeared from radar screens and plunged into the sea. The O’Connors and other victims’ families were told a fire on board had brought down the plane. As French military and intelligence services scrambled to the scene, another theory quickly emerged: that AF1611 had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from a French navy vessel. For 51 years, evidence pointing to the plane being shot down has been a military secret. This year, as passengers’ families gather in Nice to remember their loved ones, as they have done for the last 50 years, they are still waiting for the French government to declassify documents and discover the truth. “We think we know anyway, but we need to hear it,” Margaret O’Connor, 71, told the Guardian. “We don’t understand how they can keep it a secret after 51 years.” Arthur O’Connor with his daughter Margaret and wife, Kathleen. Serena O’Connor added: “This time of the year, every year, it comes back to haunt us. I hate it. It’s like a splinter that never goes away. “It was the cold war and a very different era when the crash happened, so I can understand why they classified it at the time. But now, half a century later, they have to put us through this every September. I just want it to stop.” The Caravelle was over the Mediterranean where a military exercise was taking place when air traffic control received a distress call, then a final communication from the plane: “There’s nothing we can do. We’re going to crash if this continues.” Afterwards, documents and photographs that could have shed light on the crash disappeared. The 11 September page in the log book for a French navy vessel in the area, Le Suffren, was torn out. Families were told the black box flight recorder was damaged; all previous flight data was recoverable but the recording of AF1611 was unreadable. Wreckage brought up from the sea bed was immediately confiscated by France’s military authorities. Michael Laty, a former army employee, told French television the aircraft had been hit by a heat-seeking missile that had veered off target and hit one of the Caravelle’s engines. “I typed up an army investigation into the affair; it was kept secret in the national interest. The Caravelle was shot down. We brought down a civil aircraft instead of the programmed target,” Laty said. An official inquiry, however, concluded a fire had started in the plane toilet. Today, a new eight-year investigation by gendarmes who seized previously unseen evidence has reportedly found otherwise. Stéphane Nesa, one of two lawyers representing passengers’ families, said the fire theory was nonsense. “This has been discredited for 45 years. It is completely and technically impossible,” he said. “The investigating judge has written to the government asking them to lift the ‘defence secret’ classification, but it has been over a year and we have had no response. The longer the government continues in this way, the more we feel they don’t want to establish the truth more than 50 years after the facts.” Nesa added: “There were 95 people on that plane who died including children. Their families don’t want money. They want to know the truth.” Mathieu Paoli, 75, and his brothers Louis, 72, and Jacques, 81, lost their mother Toussainte, 59, and father Ange-Marie, 60, in the crash. “The investigating judge has said he is practically certain to almost 100% that the plane was hit by a missile. Now we are waiting,” Mathieu said. “Some people ask us: ‘What are you looking for? You will never know.’ I tell them our parents are at the bottom of the sea and we cannot do our grieving without knowing exactly what happened to them.” The O’Connor sisters say they rarely speak of the accident, but it is a wound that reopens every anniversary. “It’s always there,” Serena said. “I was too small at the time to remember much about our father, but I remember the realisation that we were on our own. Our mother, who died 15 years ago, was left widowed in her early 40s with four children. She never talked about it, but it always played on her mind. She was heartbroken.” Margaret added: “While he was away he wrote postcards to each of us and they kept coming for about three weeks afterwards … It’s strange that with so many people on the plane whose families have been pushing to know the truth and all this time later we still don’t know.” The French defence ministry did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for information except to say it was for the armed forces minister, Florence Parly, to decide on declassification. On Tuesday, 24 hours before the anniversary, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, wrote to the Paoli brothers saying he hoped the affair would be declassified and he had asked Parly to begin the process of releasing documents related to the crash. For Mathieu, establishing the truth remains his life’s mission. “We don’t want money. We don’t want to blame anyone. We don’t even want a sorry … We are waiting to hear the truth. We have waited for 51 years. _______________________________________________________________________________ |
NO NEWS ON PARTIAL INVESTIGATION INTO Caravelle CRASH - Nice Matin 19/2012
In March 2012, the judge allowed some new evidence to be investigated by the Gendarmerie. It is now almost a year on and nothing has been heard about it. A cynical waiting game, keep delaying until they all die off!
On the day of the crash, French TV were making a documentary in the control room where the missiles were being fired.
Two radio technicians were recording in an adjoining room, everything that was happening in the main area. The two men testify that they heard voices exclaim " we've lost it, we've lost it" within seconds military personnel had confiscated the recordings. They were never found.
NEW PARTIAL INVESTIGATION INTO CRASH - Nice Matin 19/2012
Publié le lundi 19 mars 2012 à 17h38 - Le parquet de Nice a ouvert ce lundi une nouvelle enquête autour du crashde la caravelle Ajaccio-Nice au large du cap d'Antibes, dans lequel 95personnes avaient trouvé la mort, le 11 septembre 1968.
Selon Me Paul Sollacaro, avocat de l'association des familles de victimes, le procureur de la République de Nice, Eric de Montgolfier, a confié une enquête à la gendarmerie, après son dépôt de plainte pour "soustraction de preuves" en septembre dernier. Cette plainte se fonde sur le témoignage d'Alain Frasquet, ancien preneur de son à l'ORTF. Ce dernier évoque l'existence de bandes vidéo captées par une équipe de télévision au Mont-Agel, le jour du drame, lors de manœuvres militaires. Ces bandes, donnant à entendre "Et merde, on l'a perdu !", auraient été saisies par les Renseignements généraux aux studios de la Brague, à Antibes.
On the day of the crash, French TV were making a documentary in the control room where the missiles were being fired.
Two radio technicians were recording in an adjoining room, everything that was happening in the main area. The two men testify that they heard voices exclaim " we've lost it, we've lost it" within seconds military personnel had confiscated the recordings. They were never found.
NEW PARTIAL INVESTIGATION INTO CRASH - Nice Matin 19/2012
Publié le lundi 19 mars 2012 à 17h38 - Le parquet de Nice a ouvert ce lundi une nouvelle enquête autour du crashde la caravelle Ajaccio-Nice au large du cap d'Antibes, dans lequel 95personnes avaient trouvé la mort, le 11 septembre 1968.
Selon Me Paul Sollacaro, avocat de l'association des familles de victimes, le procureur de la République de Nice, Eric de Montgolfier, a confié une enquête à la gendarmerie, après son dépôt de plainte pour "soustraction de preuves" en septembre dernier. Cette plainte se fonde sur le témoignage d'Alain Frasquet, ancien preneur de son à l'ORTF. Ce dernier évoque l'existence de bandes vidéo captées par une équipe de télévision au Mont-Agel, le jour du drame, lors de manœuvres militaires. Ces bandes, donnant à entendre "Et merde, on l'a perdu !", auraient été saisies par les Renseignements généraux aux studios de la Brague, à Antibes.