Sighting in Dompaire, March 30, 2007

Four young witnesses were near Dompaire during the night of 30 to 31 March 2007. Between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m., they repeatedly saw white and red lights in a dark, stormy sky. The lights formed a metallic-coloured triangle that moved back and forth at varying speed. The object then passed about 15 to 20 metres above their vehicle. The sighting ended around 2 a.m., and the witnesses were deeply impressed by it.

GEIPAN's investigation reviewed air traffic in the area. A cargo plane landed at Épinal at 1:58 a.m. More importantly, an MD 90 (DC9) belonging to the Swiss company Hello AG, arriving from Zurich, carried out a crew training exercise during the hours of the sighting. It made about thirty touch-and-go manoeuvres around the Épinal runway in the afternoon, stopped when a technical problem was detected, then resumed the circuits between 7:47 p.m. and 9:16 p.m. It left for Zurich for good at 9:45 p.m. This kind of training is routine on runways with little traffic, and the company often uses the Épinal runway.

GEIPAN concluded that the light seen around 2 a.m. was probably mistaken for a street lamp or car headlights, as the witnesses themselves admitted had happened with other lights during their journey. The group was under the aircraft's flight path, in unusual conditions, near Épinal-Mirecourt airport. The case was classified A: the witnesses had seen an aircraft, the DC9 on a training exercise.