Overview
- Sandro Veronesi and a 56-year-old passenger survived when their Cessna 182 lost altitude on April 24th over the Pyrénées-Atlantiques after departing from Carcassonne.
- The pilot activated the plane’s ballistic emergency parachute, which blasts out and pulls the entire aircraft into a slower, vertical descent.
- A Bayonne PSIG patrol on a training flight spotted the dive and guided rescuers to a field near the village of Labastide-Villefranche.
- Fire crews found the aircraft with its nose buried in mud and the parachute caught in a high-voltage line, and both men were taken to hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
- The Pau prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation that focuses on whether a technical defect triggered the sudden loss of altitude.