Isère: what do we know about the crash of a Civil Security helicopter in Villard-de-Lans? – LCI

At the end of the Sunday afternoon, the prefecture of Isère indicated that a Civil Security helicopter had crashed to the ground in the Villard-de-Lans station with five people on board, near this town located in the heart of the Vercors massif. It was 4:15 pm when the crew of the Dragon 38 took off to rescue a mountain biker injured on the slopes at the “Pré des Prés”, upstream of the Côte 2000 station.

A witness saw the aircraft circling around the Rocher des Jaux two or three times, “then he came over the restaurant (located on the slopes, editor’s note), he went down a little bit and he nosedived, he fell”. The helicopter crashed into an area frequented by hikers and two explosions were heard.

“The helicopter mechanic was declared dead despite the care provided by rescuers”, explained the prefecture of Isère, in the early evening, in a press release. Gérald Darmanin welcomed the loss of a “very big pro”, father of a small child of 4 years old. Flight mechanic, Pierre-François will receive the Legion of Honor posthumously.

The other four members of the crew – the pilot, a doctor from the SAMU and two gendarmes from the PGHM (High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon) – were taken care of by the medical teams and evacuated to the Grenoble University Hospital. One of them presents serious injuries, the others are more slightly injured, specifies the prefecture.

The reasons for the accident are currently “undetermined”. The Grenoble prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation and seized the air transport research section based in Roissy, as well as the Isère gendarmerie group, announced Grenoble public prosecutor Eric Vaillant.

Two investigators from the research section arrived at the scene in the evening and will be joined by three others on Monday, he said. The investigation is moving, for the moment, towards a technical failure of the device, “relatively new”, bought in 2012 and which followed “the annual review ten days before” the accident, explained the Minister of the Interior, when he came, with Olivier Véran, on site, this Monday.

The Minister of Health, a former deputy for Isère, had also tweeted in the wake of the accident: “Upset by the crash of a Civil Security helicopter in Isère. The medical teams are mobilized to take care of the rescuers, some of whom are seriously injured. Support for the PGHM, SAMU, emergencies and civil security”.

The President of the Republic also reacted to the tragedy which mourned the “great family of Civil Security”.

The president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region Laurent Wauquiez also said his emotion. The Minister of the Interior announced on Twitter that he will visit the site this Monday morning “in order to meet the gendarmes and civil security agents“.

In France, Civil Security relies on 250,000 volunteers from associations spread across the country, backed up by thousands of firefighters.