Becoming Pilot 04 : "Céline"
This account is a subjective vision of different people who were present during the events of 2004. It is neither a judgment nor an interpretation, nor a rewriting of history. Only the BEA investigation report has an official reading.
"You should have seen this.
Flying over the Sahara, the Antarctic,
through Siberia, over the Atlantic
You should have been there."
August 2021, 6am
My alarm clock rings. Summer is finally here. It's a decent hour for a pilot. Far from the 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning that rocked my 10 years of medium haul flights. Today I'll be flying a Boeing 777 to San Francisco. It will be a long day: we take-off at 10:25 am, cross the Atlantic, the North Pole, Canada and the Californian rocks to finally descend over the Napa Valley and land 12 hours later in San Francisco. It's my last flight to America before coming back on medium haul. So obviously this flight has a special feeling to it. I'm lucky, I'm in the company of a captain and a first officer I know.
August 2004, 6am
Céline's alarm clock rings. After having brilliantly passed the Enac selection, she did her first flight hours of the curriculum and realized her childhood dream. Her first flight being at the age of 14, she had obtained her basic license at 15 and her PPL at 17. At just 18 years old, Céline already has 106 hours of flight time, including 40 as a captain, which is a solid experience for her age. So, when she starts her Enac training with an introduction to basic piloting on Cap10, she feels at ease and flies through the hours with comfort. The memories of the beginning of the training are often indelible. Meeting her peers, first hours of flights, discovery of Carcassonne and its surroundings. It is the birth of a pilot's spirit, punctuated by courses, briefings, discussions about her flights with her instructors or with her new colleagues.
#13: Talking about the day's flight, knowing how to debrief, knowing how to learn from others’ mistakes, knowing how to learn from tips picked up here and there. It is also during these first weeks that the atmosphere and spirit of a promotion take shape.
Same day, same time
Harif's alarm clock rings. More motivated than ever, he knows that if the weather is good, he will make his first solo sail. The moment when you get your instructor’s trust and the level needed for his first solo sail is truly a great moment.
2021
I arrive at the flight preparation and meet my colleagues. We study together our flight file. The day looks good, no turbulence, no particular weather. We leave for the plane and I do the preflight while my colleagues prepare our departure.
2004
It's a beautiful day, Céline can already see the pink sky in the morning. While having her breakfast, she prepares her flight with a weather forecast. The anticyclonic conditions are favorable, the temperature is 19 degrees. This is her 10th hour of flight and then she will be on vacation. She is happy to fly, but also to have a vacation before resuming theoretical training in September. She puts on her sky blue young pilot suit, adapted to the cap10 and to her parachute. Then she joined the operations to refine her preparation. She presents all the elements to her instructor, then they agree on the route of the day.
In the next room, Harif conscientiously prepares his flight. For his first flight, he will go to Béziers. He studies the weather of all the surrounding areas and already anticipates if an event would lead him to divert.
2021
After the second co-pilot takes off, we quickly climb to level 330 for our first cruise. No turbulence, it's smooth. Our passengers will enjoy a lunch over the Channel. As for me, I am designated to take the first rest and I let my colleagues manage the flight over England and then obtaining our oceanic clearance to cross the Atlantic. I slept for two hours and when I came back we were approaching Greenland. The view is fantastic.
2004
Céline, approaches the F-GYZA to do her preflight. With the same rigor that she applies to each of her gestures. Meticulously, she inspects every detail of her plane, every cable, every control surface. The plane is ready, so is she. She climbs onto the wing and settled into the narrow cockpit of the Cape 10. She continues her preflight inside and mechanically reviews all her actions to get the plane up and running. The instructor arrives and settles in on the right side.
A few minutes later, Harif does the preflight of his TB20 F-GEVK. But he won't have to wait for his instructor because today he's going solo. He closes the butterfly door and finishes his preparations.
Céline does her pre-startup guides and checklist before starting the engine. Gasoline open, full rich mixture, gas reduced, magnetos 1+2, approaches clear. She starts the engine, the propeller makes its first jerky turns, before suddenly roaring and making the 180 horsepower engine of the cap10 roar. You can't hear yourself think, the vibrations take over your whole body. She puts the mixture on full rich, stabilizes her engine at 1200 rpm, connects the alternator and finishes her actions after start-up. With her headset on her ears, she calls the control tower:
"Carcassonne from Fox Zoulou Alpha, hello".
The tower answers : "Zoulou Alpha".
She asks for her departure clearance:
"Carcassonne from Fox Golf Yankee Zoulou Alpha, a Cap 10 at the parking and it will be for a local southbound."
"Zoulou Alpha taxi for runway twenty-eight, report ready."
"Zulu Alpha taxi to twenty-eight and report ready."
Celine releases the brakes on her cap 10 and applies the throttle slightly. She begins to roll and carefully masters the turns that are so special on a classic train. It takes a good coordination between the rudders on the feet and the stick in the hands to adapt to the effects of the control surfaces according to the wind direction. After 9 hours of flight, it has already become natural for her.
Harif, from his TB-20, watches Céline's plane taxiing to runway 28. It reminds him of his first hours, the most important ones, where everything starts.
Céline approaches the stopping point to do her engine tests. With her stick back, she pushes the RPM to 1800 and tests her magnetos and idle. After checking her flight controls and briefing, she asked for take-off clearance.
"Zoulou Alpha, at holding point, ready for departure".
"Cleared line up and take off 28, wind 270/5kt, left turn
"Cleared for takeoff runway 28, left turn in flight, Fox Zoulou Alpha
She takes off, does her turn, her after takeoff actions and climbs to her cruising level of the day. In the roar of the engines, the noise of the radio, there are always a few seconds to contemplate the sky. The sun finishes rising, it makes course towards it. Between beauty and slight glare, she remains nevertheless concentrated on her flight parameters.
Harif took off, his route is the opposite, towards Béziers. His cruise is peaceful too, finally peaceful without an instructor! 45 minutes later, he starts his approach to Béziers and gently lands his TB20 before taking off again for Carcassonne. On the return flight, the radio frequency is silent, almost ghostly. As he approaches Carcassonne he notices that he is the only one in the air. No other traffic departing or arriving, which is rare in a center with so many planes and students flying every day...
He lands and proudly puts down his tb20 for his first solo flight. One more step in his career. When he opens his canopy and gets out of his tb20, he is happy.
But as he collects his belongings and turns towards the hangar, he discovers, sitting there, solemnly lined up, all the students of the training center, in their sky blue uniforms. The vision is abnormal. He walks towards them, his recent happiness gradually turning into stupor as he gets closer. All of the students look lost, some looking away, the ground for some, the sky for others, the void for most.
"What are you all doing sitting here? What's going on?"
None of them really dares to answer him. The silence is heavy, but he doesn't insist and heads for the operations room where the atmosphere is heavy, cold. His instructor indicates a debriefing room and says to him "let's go in this room, we will be more quiet to talk". Harif debriefed his first solo nav but understood that something was wrong this morning. His instructor concludes, "Congratulations on your first solo nav, that's great. Now I have to tell you something, the Cap10 with Celine and her instructor left 1h45 ago. They should have been there 45 minutes ago. The tower didn’t receive any raido messages either. We don't know where they are yet and we are approaching the maximum autonomy of the plane". Harif collapses, he understands why all his colleagues and friends were sitting there with a blank stare.
2021
The descent over the San Francisco Bay is sumptuous. We reach our base stage by gradually decelerating to our approach speed. San Francisco, often overcrowded, allows us to land on the right runway while a A320 is allowed on the left, barely 1 nautical mile ahead of us. This is the last time I will land here for a long time, if ever, I apply myself and enjoy it at the same time.
I have been in aviation for 17 years. I have evolved and changed with my job. And I would say that the thing I have felt evolve is the tendency to see and look for risk and danger everywhere. In the sense of trying to eliminate it to stay safe. We all risk our lives every day: walking down the street, getting on a train, a bus, a car, but also in our kitchens, our stairs, our gardens... and at any given moment who is safe from a heart attack, a stroke, a ruptured aneurysm, or a nasty virus...? No one.
#14: Every extra day is a gift that should be appreciated. Without falling into the cliché of living each day as the last, but as a simple happiness, in a civilized country and not at war.
In reality, I take more risk on the road on my way to work than at work. Simply because commercial aviation has become one of the safest means of transportation in the world (second only to the elevator) for one reason: the entire microcosm and macrocosm working around the aircraft have only one goal: flight safety.
#15: As a pilot, you are one of many actors. If we notice a failure, we must report it. If the whole system has a failure, we must be even more courageous to voice it and question it. But nothing is infallible. Not you, not the whole system. But it's almost impossible to change things with little experience or in an environment that doesn't allow you to express yourself. As a young beginner, when you start to reach your dream, you won't have enough hindsight to question your teachers and their drifts.
On August 6, 2004, at the very beginning of our training, the Cap-10, F-GYZA, with on board Céline Signoret, 18 years old, a brilliant young student of the Enac, and her instructor, never returned. This accident has marked our class forever. It is unacceptable to lose one of us so soon.
The circumstances of the accident are detailed in the BEA report. One thing is certain, that morning they were overexposed to risk. Something we have all encountered in our careers, through our fault or that of another.
#16: A poster in an Aero Club showed a plane crashing over a friend's house with the words "you won't wow the devil". It seems obvious, but the day you are confronted with this, think about it. Only education, feedback will save you from trying something that could cost your life.
Céline, I've barely spoken to you, I've only met you once or twice. But you are part of my class. You are and will remain EPL2004.
When I watch the sunrise at 30 west, I am tired, I have dark circles under my eyes because of the night flight, but I tell myself that I am lucky to be here. You rarely hear people saying they are lucky. We focus on our work, our sacrifices to get here, the difficulties or enemies we had to overcome. It's true, there are some. But throughout our lives, in the events that happen to us, the people we meet, the environment we come from, there is an element of luck. This is the last slice in Reason's Swiss Cheese model of accident description. Proof if it were needed, that even in a scientific way it is admitted to have some.
#17: An economic crisis, a health crisis, an accident in life, or any other event will change the life and career of a pilot. Be prepared that the road ahead will not be a smooth one. Be prepared to cross the desert.
We think of you regularly Céline, including on our flights. Simply because it could have been any of us EPL04, but also any other EPL. And also because we know that you would have become a 320 pilot, a long haul pilot, and that you would surely be on a captain training course with us today. We know that you would have enjoyed each of your flights, that you would have been happy and that you would have shared your happiness.
My thoughts are with you, your family, your parents and your brother pilots, who continue to carry your name high in the sky.
