Another accident in Savoie

[Tartiflette Fan]

A bad week for aviators in Savoie. On Thursday August 5th, in mid-afternoon, a Robin DR 400 crashed just outside the village of Saint-Colomban-des-Villards on the road up to the Col de Glandon. Three died in the crash. A fourth person got out of the plane, severely burned - and was helped by a passing cyclist.The plane took off from a flying-club in Loire-Atlantique and was heading to Sarlat in the Dordogne.. All four were of the same family: parents, son and daughter . The daughter survived and was helicoptered to a specialist burns-unit in Lyon.

[Flap40]

Sounds like a bit of a detour. Loire-Atlantique to Sarlat goes nowhere near Savoie.

[Tartiflette Fan]

There were two reports in different papers. The first said the plane was from a flying-club in Loire-Atlantique destination Sarlat without saying it took off from L-A ( my assumption !) and the second said it took off from Annecy without any detail whether that was an intermediate stop. The family originated from E France.

[Tartiflette Fan]

https://www.lefigaro.fr/nantes/crash-mortel-d-une-famille-de-loire-atlantique-en-savoie-un-rapport-pointe-des-erreurs-de-pilotage-20230629

Basically the report says that the crash was due to the pilot's lack of experience of flying in mountainous areas. He had only 230 hours total experience, and probably no experience at all of mountain flying. The route he flew took no account of the steepness of the mountain, the lack of power of his aircraft to be able to climb sufficiently to clear the summit, and also the narrowing of the valley making it difficult to turn and fly out.

The daughter was the only survivor, badly burned, subsequently spending 16 months in hospital and physical rehabilitation, now returned to her home region.