JEK
Senior Insider
Twenty years ago, twenty victims in the crash
from a Caribbean aircraft to Saint-Barthélemy
On March 24, 2001, an airplane operated by the Cat Company under Air Caribbean charter contracts little time before landing at Saint-Barthélemy Airport. The catastrophe is twenty victims.
"I have always considered this event like that of my father's loss rather than the disaster of the aircraft accident," says Florian Chok. From this day which suddenly marked his life, he keeps only memories a little "vague". "I was 5 years old, we were waiting for my father at the airport. I remember the worried looks of the people and the implicit understanding that something
It was badly past. »
March 24, 2001 at 4:47 pm, the Cat Otter DH6-300 of the Cat registered F-Oges and ensuring the flight TX 1501 of Air Caribbean Juliana-Saint-Barth crashes on the house of Mireille and Augustin Questel located on the public heights. The tanks arise, the fire extends to the house. The seventeen passages, two equestal members and Augustin Questel, the owner of the house that was inside, die in the accident. The victims are mostly French rents but there is also an American, a hollandis, two Belgians and a Franco-American.
What happened ?
"While the plane addresses the short final before the pass of the
Turning, several people, including the Affix Agent, see it turning to the left turn to large tilt and then sting towards the ground. "Note the Office of Inquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Security (BEA) in a report seek later. "It does not appear any anomaly as to the continuity of the flight controls and the mechanical links", continues the report. The BEA discusses several analytical tracks. That of the human error is privileged:
"This is the hypothesis of a voluntary pacing of the propellers in the beta inverter beach that appears the most probable. »
Seven years later, the comparidis is condemned. On April 29, 2008, the Basse-Terre Court of Appeal confirms the condemnation of the CORRECTIONAL Tribunal at first instance. It concludes with the "obviously deliberate violation of an obligation of prudence or security provided for by law or regulation" for
Have not respected the obligation of the drive theft for a driver containing the controls of a device more than 90 days after leaving them. Richard DeGryse, Responsible for Air Caribbean Air Operations at the time is sentenced to one year suspended prison and two years of banning air operations management. The companie will have to pay a fine of 250,000 € to the families of victims. The
Condemnation must be published in two national dailies.
"I always told myself that it did not change much," says Sophie Delépine today, Florian Choquet's mother. His companion, Jean-Pascal Choquet died in the accident. "Yes, IlyaeuanProcesséaéness compensated. It does not make people. Florian Choquet, he, remembers how, child, he was concerned about recovering memories of thisthat his father had on him, the day of the accident. "It took a very long time. I finally recovered a piece of burned watch. Today he does not have the feeling of having had a "clear answer" on the circumstances of the accident. "The fact that the plane does not have a black box made the work of the experts very difficult, emphasized at the time of the trial an association of the families of victims. Also note that the AFIS Service Agent (airline airline aircraft), responsible for transmitting the information on theft, the traffic of the aerodrome and the discontinibility of the track, could not be Serve the recorder of the conversations between the Vigie and the planes because ... he had broken down since 18 months. But for Florian Choquet, find out more "would not have repaired much". This reassures it, it is to "hope that driver controls and devices have been improved" after catastrophe. To avoid new dramas. A few days commemorations, where his mother goes like every year flourishing the stele erected to public in tribute to the victims, he "wishes the best to those who lost relatives at that time. »
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