Sighting in Viviers-lès-Offroicourt, October 19, 2022

Five people, two women and three men, were chatting in a street when one of them noticed an unusual column of smoke in the sky. It was thick and rose in a surprisingly vertical line. While the group watched, a dark point suddenly emerged from the column and moved slowly away, leaving behind a thinner, less dense trail of smoke. It drifted gradually toward the southwest and vanished in the distance. No sound was heard. The witness who first noticed it tried to photograph the phenomenon with a phone, but the pictures were blurry, and a search for a better camera came to nothing. The witness then told a journalist friend, who published an article in the local press, and later reported the sighting to the gendarmerie, which referred them to GEIPAN.

Image processing of the photos pointed the investigation toward an aircraft flying at high altitude. CNOA radar data identified an Air France Airbus A319-111 on a Paris–Florence flight, at 11,000 to 12,000 m. Its initial path was hidden by the smoke column and only became visible to the witnesses after a change of heading. At 58 km away, then 25 km, no noise could be expected. The smoke column came from the remains of a stubble burn in the direction of observation, 470 m from the witnesses, once the chimneys of two large companies had been ruled out. The weak wind let the smoke rise almost vertically, and the dampness and mixed nature of the straw made it thick and very dark against the light. An embankment hid the fire, and the distance plus a very light crosswind explain why no sound reached them. The case was classified A: the contrail of an airliner.