Caravelle Ajaccio–Nice: court clears raising the wreck

On 11 September 1968 an Air France Caravelle flying from Ajaccio to Nice crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off Cap d’Antibes. All 95 people on board were killed. Fifty-eight years later the judicial authorities in Nice have decided to raise key pieces of wreckage from the seabed, including both engines: the answer to what happened to Flight 1611 depends on them.

The September 2026 decision

On 7 September 2026 it emerged that the operation to recover the wreckage has been declared feasible. The Public Prosecutor in Nice, Damien Martinelli, and the investigating judge leading the case confirmed to representatives of the victims’ families the prospect of new underwater work. The focus is above all on the two engines — they are at the centre of the investigation. This was reported by Nice Mag and the legal publication Petites Affiches. Neither the timing of the operation nor the contractor has yet been announced: raising items from a depth of more than two kilometres requires equipment that only a handful of companies in the world possess.

What was found 2,300 metres down

The first successful underwater campaign took place from 11–13 October 2025. Specialists from CEPHISMER — a unit of the French Navy based in Toulon — worked in a pre-defined area of 8 square kilometres off Cap d’Antibes, the headland, known for its historic villas. For around thirty hours an autonomous next-generation underwater drone rated for dives to 3,000 metres scanned the seabed with a three-dimensional imaging sonar.

The result: at a depth of about 2,300 metres numerous fragments of fuselage, elements of the tail section and two objects identified as probable engines were located. Prosecutor Martinelli confirmed the findings to AFP, and lawyers for the families called the campaign historic — as described by franceinfo. The searches themselves were authorised by the Nice prosecutor in October 2024 and by the investigating judge in February 2025; the details of the campaign were examined by France 3 Côte d’Azur.

Why everything hinges on the engines

An official technical commission in a report dated 14 December 1972 attributed the crash to a fire on board of undetermined origin, which caused the crew to lose control. In June 1973 the case was closed for lack of a criminal offence.

A second version emerged publicly in May 2011: Michel Lati, the former military secretary of the maritime prefecture in Toulon, said on television that on that day a civilian aircraft had been shot down instead of a training target. Military exercises were indeed being conducted in that area of the Mediterranean. In March 2012 the investigation was reopened — under the charge of concealment and suppression of evidence.

There is still no direct evidence of a missile strike, and the dispute between the two versions hinges on physical evidence. Examination of the recovered engines is the only way to check the nature of the damage to the metal and understand where the destruction came from: from inside the cabin or from outside.

Half a century of the families’ fight

The Association of Families of the Victims of the Caravelle Ajaccio–Nice (AFVCCAN) was formed in 1969, a few months after the disaster. For half a century it conducted its own counter-investigation and pushed for underwater searches — primarily to establish whether the engines remained on the seabed or had been raised during trawling in the late 1960s.

In the summer of 2026 relatives appealed directly to Emmanuel Macron, calling the letter a final plea for the truth; the families were to be received at the Élysée Palace — this was reported by ICI. The September decision to raise the wreckage was a continuation of that effort.

The ceremony on 9 September in Nice

On Wednesday 9 September 2026 Nice will hold a ceremony in memory of the 95 victims — on the 58th anniversary of the tragedy. At 10:30 a mass will be held at the church of Sainte Hélène (142, avenue de la Californie), and at noon a civic ceremony will take place at the memorial stele in the Ferber Gardens on the Promenade des Anglais — facing the sea where the aircraft fell. Selected officials, representatives of services and the victims’ families will attend; the programme was published by the agency Presse Agence. The date of the crash itself is 11 September.

The aircraft that changed aviation

The aircraft that crashed was a Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle III registered F-BOHB. The Caravelle was the first French jet airliner for short- and medium-haul routes: it entered commercial service in 1959, and its distinguishing feature was rear-mounted engines, which made the cabin noticeably quieter than that of contemporary aircraft.

The Ajaccio–Nice flight took about 45 minutes. Today Nice Airport serves dozens of countries, and from June 2027 there will also be a direct flight to Toronto. The 1968 case remains France’s oldest open aviation investigation — and if the recovery takes place, an answer to the question of the causes could come almost sixty years later.

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Photo: 沖縄ダイビングスクール ワールドダイビング / Pexels