Ajaccio - Ajaccio

On August 1, 2005 at 10:05 AM, Ajaccio - Ajaccio experienced a crash involving Canadair CL-415, operated by Sécurité civile française, with the event recorded near Calvi Haute-Corse.

The flight was categorized as fire fighting and the reported phase was flight at a mountains crash site.

2 people were known to be on board, 2 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 2, crew fatalities: 2, passengers on board: 0, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is other causes. After take-off from Ajaccio Airport and a first scooping, the fleet composed of three planes with respective callsigns Pelican 44, Pelican 36 and Pelican 37 intervened on a fire at Piétramaggiore, near Calvi, Corsica, France. A first sector of the fire zone was treated by six passes. During the two following passages, the fleet dropped on another sector of the fire. Pelican 36 began its last scooping in the Gulf of Revellata at heading 250°, three minutes and fourteen seconds before the accident. At the end, it gained height and continued the circuit to arrive on the drop axis. The "doubling" action consists of releasing the water load at the precise location of the previous aircraft's release. During the last turn, it reached an altitude of 2,160 feet. Pelican 36 was observed on a trajectory estimated to be consistent by the crew of the following aircraft (Pelican 37) a few seconds before it passed over the drop site. However, video evidence shows that the track of Pelican 36 is further west than that of Pelican 44, which preceded it, and over higher terrain. One and a half seconds before the flight recorder stopped, the aircraft was in a right turn at an altitude of 1,360 feet. The angle of roll to the right and increasing was then 17°. While the elevators were nearly stable, the altitude stored by the flight recorder increased to 1,500 feet in one and a half seconds. After that the tail section of the aircraft separated from the fuselage. The aircraft then impacted the side of a mountain and broke up. Crew: Ludovic Piasentin, pilot, Jean-Louis de Bénédict, copilot.

Aircraft reference details include registration F-ZBEO, MSN 2011, year of manufacture 1995.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 42.5283°, 8.8945°.