Two French military jets flying very close to the ground struck power lines and cut off power to a village in southern France.
The incident took place on Wednesday afternoon in the small village of Le Castellet near Manosque.
The two Rafales (French military jets) reportedly took off from a nearby air force base on a low-altitude training flight.
An investigation into the “rare incident” has started.
“The plane flew very low that it made a lot of noise, then I looked up and saw a second plane,” the village mayor told the local French newspaper.
“It was so low that I told myself it was under the power line,” said Benoit Gwen, who was driving at the time.
Further down, he said he found a power line hanging on the ground: “One of the planes hit the line and cut it. I immediately called emergency and the Enedis team.”
The cable fall caused a fire that was quickly contained, reports media.
The village was without electricity for several hours, while the access road was also closed for safety reasons.
“There were no fatalities. The incident in this flight forced the pilot of the plane to land safely at Orange Air Force Base at 14:11 [13:11 GMT],” a French Air Force spokesman told media. They regret “this very rare occurrence.”
French Military also done like this before…
On September 30, 2020, A French aircraft broke the sound barrier and shocked Parisians in search of two commercial planes that lost radio contact.
The French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament players surprisingly paused the game.
The people in Paris were on the verge of a knife attack last week, which authorities viewed as a terrorist act.
This time, French police rushed to urge residents fearing an explosion not to call emergency services.
“A Rafale who flew to help the plane that lost contact has allowed to break the sound barrier and reach the troubled aircraft asap,” media.
A sonic boom is a sound associate with a shock wave that occurs when an object travels faster than the speed of sound in the air. It can sound like explosion or thunder.
