Sighting in Montivilliers, November 22, 2012

At around 9:15 p.m., a witness noticed a bright, motionless light in an overcast sky. At about 9:24 p.m., they saw that it was moving slowly and horizontally toward Fontenay. The witness's mother also saw the fixed light, which she compared to a spotlight, but she saw no flashing light. The light eventually disappeared behind the rooftops of nearby houses. No other testimony was collected.

The gendarmerie carried out a thorough inquiry, contacting military air traffic control, neighbouring police stations, Octeville airport and METEOFRANCE. It settled on the possibility of an aircraft arriving from Lyon and approaching Le Havre-Octeville airport from the north-east, nearly head-on to the southerly wind. Radar traces did not show this aircraft, but they only covered an area of less than 10 km west of Montivilliers. An aircraft coming from the south-east had to pass the LHO waypoint at Mannevillette, well north of that area, so it could have skirted the area to the east and then the north.

Seen head-on at low altitude, an aircraft is visible from 20 km, even 30 km or more, as a single point of light, because position lights and flashing lights, much weaker than the landing lights, cannot be seen at that distance. That day, horizontal visibility reached 60 km despite the heavy cloud cover, which may explain why the witnesses did not usually notice this scheduled flight. The pilot may also have chosen a particular route or altitude. GEIPAN classified the case as B: a very probable aircraft seen head-on, on approach to Le Havre-Octeville airport.