SALLE (LA) (88) 07.05.2015

On 7 May 2015 at about 21:45, 2 people in La Salle (88) were puzzled by a luminous phenomenon in the sky. Powerful white, red and orange lights seemed to revolve around a craft. They heard no sound as it moved. A Flightradar24 check in the viewing direction identified a descending Ryanair aircraft at about 2, 000 m. It approached from the north on a southeast heading and at 21:40 turned 90° toward the northeast for Strasbourg airport; see the attached screenshots. After the turn, the observers saw it from behind. Its movement away was difficult to perceive, making it seem almost stationary, although the witness noticed it receding near the end. GEIPAN describes this as fully consistent with the account, which says it arrived rapidly from the northeast and suddenly hovered. The source thus retains a reported approach from the northeast alongside the reconstructed approach from the north. At this flight stage the aircraft had several lights: powerful forward-facing landing lights; steady green, red and white position lights; red anti-collision lights; and white strobes. GEIPAN explains that the 2 flashing types each operate roughly once per second without being synchronized, sometimes creating an impression of a sequence of flashing lights. GEIPAN considers the lack of audible aircraft noise unsurprising at a distance of 15 or 20 km, with the engines at low power during descent. The surroundings were also not especially quiet: a television was on and substantial background noise is audible in the video. GEIPAN classifies the case as A: observation of the aircraft operating Ryanair flight 5061.