Bathernay air accident of 20 April 1938

On 20 April 1938 an Amiot 143 bomber of the 35ème Escadre d'observation crashed at Bathernay during a transfer flight from Bron to Marignane, where it was to take part in an air-naval exercise, killing all five crew members.

The accident

In April 1938 joint exercises between the Armée de l'Air and the Marine nationale were to be held around Marignane, in the Bouches-du-Rhône.

To take part in the exercise, 12 Amiot 143 bombers of the 35ème Escadre d'observation stationed at air base 105 Bron were mobilised.

Three aircraft took off from Bron on the morning of 19 April 1938, followed by another nine that departed on 20 April at around 8:00, in cloudy weather with a light wind.

At around 8:45, two aircraft barely visible in the sky were seen flying over the region between Saint-Vallier and Saint Donat, in the Drôme. Five minutes later, another appeared at very low altitude above the hills of Bathernay.

With its engines racing hard, the aircraft headed at high speed towards a small valley, called "le Perdriolon", where the communes of Saint-Donat, Charmes and Bathernay meet. Suddenly a loud explosion was heard which scattered some parts of the aircraft, such as wings, tail surfaces, wheels, etc., up to a kilometre away. The largest part of the aircraft went into a dive and crashed to the ground, starting a large fire.

The rescuers had to wait more than an hour before approaching the wreckage of the aircraft, in which were trapped the remains of the bodies of the five crew members of Amiot 143 n.112 (code 6) of the II Escadrille of the 35ème Escadre d'observation.

The commission of inquiry considered, as the cause of this accident, that the aircraft had disintegrated in flight during a hard "ressource" (pull-up). The pilot, trapped in a thick cloud, would have wanted to regain visibility by diving towards the ground and then, surprised by the proximity of the high ground, would have performed a pull-up that proved too violent and caused the in-flight disintegration of the aircraft, which explained the explosion heard by the witnesses.

The five crew members perished in the accident: Lieutenant Henri Méry, aircraft commander, 31, a native of Cudot, in the Yonne, 472 flight hours; Second Lieutenant Bernard Martin des Paillères, pilot, 24, a native of Bourg-en-Bresse in the Ain, married and father of a daughter, 258 flight hours; Staff Sergeant Henri Chapuis, mechanic, 27, a native of Bourg-en-Bresse in the Ain, married and father of a daughter, 200 flight hours; Sergeant René Vailly, gunner, 22, a native of Lyon, 200 flight hours; Sergeant Alexandre Jourdain, radio operator, 22, a native of La Rochelle, married and father of a 14-month-old child and with his wife pregnant with another child.

On the afternoon of 20 April an ambulance from air base 105 came to collect the bodies of the airmen, who were taken to the mortuary of the "Desgenettes" military hospital in Lyon. A religious ceremony was held on 23 April at the Primatial Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Stephen in Lyon and military honours were rendered in the cathedral square in the presence of General François d'Astier de La Vigerie, commander of the 4th Air Region.

On 20 April 2008, near Bathenay, at the edge of the D884, on the initiative of the Association Rhodanienne pour le Souvenir Aérien (ARSA) and the Vieilles Tiges, the commune of Bathernay inaugurated a monument in tribute to the five airmen.