Sighting in Bastia, August 5, 2013

At around 11:50 p.m., several witnesses noticed five points of light above the sea, on the horizon. The lights moved silently from north to south, and the way they moved intrigued the observers. One witness was on the roof of a building, a few kilometres from the path of an aircraft preparing to land.

The investigation, carried out with civil aviation, retained only one hypothesis: AIR CORSICA flight AT 514, an Airbus A 320 flying from Paris to Bastia. The flight was very late. It should have landed at 11:00 p.m. but touched down at 12:02 a.m. at Bastia-Poretta airport, south of the city, having passed offshore between 11:40 and 11:55 p.m. The five white lights could have been the aircraft's position lights and wing lights, whose apparent arrangement changed as it turned and began its descent toward the runway. Switching on the landing lights on approach may have altered the perceived "geometry" of the lights even further.

Air traffic control, which was on alert because this was the last flight expected, noticed nothing else, and the air transport gendarmerie reported nothing unusual. No article appeared in the local press, and no other witness could be found. GEIPAN classified the case A: observation of flight AT 514 during landing, the very particular viewing conditions explaining the witness's surprise.