Mirage jet crashes with microlight plane above France

[v2]

A French Mirage fighter jet and a microlight aircraft collided over eastern France on Thursday, killing the pilot of the light plane, firefighters said.

The Mirage 2000 had taken off on a routine training flight from a base in Luxeuil-les-Bains, in eastern France, firefighters said. It crashed with the microlight plane over the town of Etrigny, killing the pilot.

The victim's name was not released. He was the only person on board the microlight craft.

The Mirage, apparently without serious damage, returned to its base.

[timshatz]

Sounds about right. Those Microlites are annoying. Like knats. No offense to the guys that fly them on this board. Is there some kind of training to them or are they build and fly jobbies?

[Parmigiano]

dunno about flight rules in France, in Italy they are quite strict

Ultralight regulations in Italy

The most important rule is about altitude: limit is 500ft during the week and 1000ft at w-end and holidays. That should exclude traffic jams with normal aviation.

I know France is more 'liberal', but I doubt they have no altitude limits.

Most likely this ultralight was flying above the legal limits (I saw it happening often), but it could be that the Mirage was flying too low (sometimes the military pilot do stupid things too)

[Parmigiano]

Well. I've found something on the TF1 site: if the collision happened at 700-1000ft I really believe that the Mirage was flying (authorized or not) too low. Unless of course it was a specfic military 'corridor' violated by the ULM.

Only the official report will shed light on this.

"Selon le Service d'informations et de relations publiques de l'armée de l'air (Sirpa air), les deux appareils volaient à une altitude "de 700 à 1.000 pieds", soit 200 à 300 mètres, et les conditions de visibilité étaient excellentes."

[timshatz]

I've come across them in the air in the US. They generally fly in packs. Pilots seem pretty sane but there are a good number of nutjobs who just build one and go off flying in it. Saw one go doing slow rolls all the way down to the ground from 2,000ft. In a rickety little thing like that, it was pure nutz.

[Parmigiano]

Nuts are everywhere among ULM pilots.

I flew ULM for 8 years, then in 2003 I sold the kite because I had no more time for it.

In general ULM are safe, if you fly with just a bit of brain.
The frame is normally over-dimensioned, stall and spin very benign and you don't need fighter-pilot reaction time at that speeds.
Emergencies are normally related to engine stop, but you can rely on a very long gliding route to land on a clean field.
The danger is when you fly in bad weather (you're like a butterfly in the wind) or when you do bad maintenance to the frame.
In my 8 years I had only two emergencies: one time the engine left me (one carb rubber collector broke in flight, leaving me with one cylinder) and I simply landed on a nearby grass field, the other time I was about to flare for landing when one idiot invaded the runway 100 mt ahead of me: had to regain speed until 10 inches from ground and then bank sharply to miss him.

but a lot of ULM pilots plays too close to ground or simply disregard every basic common sense.