Sighting in Les Trois-Îlets, April 29, 2024

At 6:18 p.m. local time, a witness on vacation was out on the balcony of their apartment when they noticed an object moving along an almost vertical path. It looked like a rocket or a missile. The witness managed to film it. Their partner, who was also there, saw the phenomenon too but did not submit a formal account to GEIPAN. GEIPAN rated the case as well substantiated: there was only one witness, but the description was detailed and a video existed.

Two explanations were examined: Starlink satellites and an aircraft. The first was ruled out, since such satellites normally look like plain points of light with no trail, and their azimuth and elevation did not match the observation.

The investigation concluded that the object was a Cessna Citation 700, identified through the FlightRadar24 application as flying over the area at the time. Its heading and direction of travel were roughly the same as those the witness reported. The elongated shape matched a fuselage with a condensation trail formed at about 12,000 m, partly lit by the setting sun. The straight, steady-speed movement pointed the same way. At that altitude the aircraft would not be heard and its wings would be hard to see. Because the two engines sit at the rear of the fuselage, the lit trail looked from the ground like a continuous, uniform structure. The case is classified A: observation of an aircraft.