[A432] DE L'ISLE D'ABEAU (38) VERS PARCIEUX (01) 25.04.2024

On Thursday 25 April 2024, a motorist driving toward Paris from L'Isle-d'Abeau on the A432 at about 110 km/h saw an unusual object near Lyon-Saint-Exupéry airport. It appeared deep black, and he initially took it for a jet aircraft. It moved rapidly from right to left, about 1 km ahead of his car and at an estimated altitude of 200 m. Less than 5 seconds later, after a slight left turn, it began a dramatic, rapid climb. The witness found the speed of its movements and ascent particularly unusual, especially because he heard no sound. GEIPAN assesses the evidential support as moderate: one witness, a complete account and no photograph. Under its criteria, evidential support is the amount of information considered reliable and objectively established that has been collected for an account. Radar tracks supplied by the French Air and Space Force through CAPCODA support a fighter-aircraft explanation. The data match the reported trajectory and time (see the CAPCODA and Earthnull attachments). The aircraft had been flying visually without air-traffic control, using IFF code 0300, before pulling up to transition to military control, using IFF code 3677. GEIPAN finds that this matches the reported rapid climb. The absence of audible noise could reflect the combined effects of traveling in a car at 110 km/h and weak wind that did not carry the aircraft's sound toward the witness. The source suggests that the lack of a sonic boom could mean the aircraft had already reached supersonic speed or would do so after climbing; it does not establish either possibility. GEIPAN classifies the case A: observation of a fighter aircraft climbing rapidly to transition to military air-traffic control.