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1968 Sainte-Marie Douglas DC-6 crash

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1968 Sainte-Marie Douglas DC-6 crash
Post-takeoff crash.
Date9 March 1968 (1968-03-09)
SiteSainte-Marie, Réunion, France
Aircraft
Aircraft typeDouglas DC-6
Flight originGillot Airport
Fatalities16
Survivors1 (a Flight nurse)

The 1968 Sainte-Marie Douglas DC-6 crash was an aviation accident that occurred on the island of La Réunion, a French overseas department in the southwestern Indian Ocean, on the evening of 9. A military Douglas DC-6 aircraft taking off from Gillot Airport at 23h 15'  crashed two minutes later in the commune of Sainte-Marie, Réunion, resulting in the deaths of sixteen people, including French General Charles Ailleret [fr]. This aviation accident remains the deadliest in the history of La Réunion.

Aircraft

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Disaster

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Departing from Gillot at 23:00, the plane, which was originally scheduled to land in Djibouti at 11:40, crashed 55 seconds after takeoff.[1]

The only survivor was General Ailleret's nurse, and the accident remains classified as defense secret and unsolved to this day: sabotage, alcohol, or suicide action.[2][3]

In 1998, flight nurse Michèle Renard testified about this incident.[4]

A commemoration of this accident took place in March 2018.[5]

Notes and references

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  1. ^ "9 March 1968: Hell in the Heights of Sainte-Marie". Clicanoo.re. 4 March 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  2. ^ "1968: DC-6 Crash, La Réunion's Worst Air Disaster". IPReunion.com. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  3. ^ "53 ans jour pour jour : l'Accident aérien le plus important de l'histoire de la Réunion". Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  4. ^ "The Sole Survivor Tells Her Story". Clicanoo.re. 14 March 1998. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  5. ^ "Commemoration of the DC6 Crash". defense.gouv.fr. 26 March 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2021.

See also

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