Death of Gérard Leclerc: Bodies seen but “particularly difficult” research, update on the investigation

This Tuesday, August 15, Gérard Leclerc is piloting a passenger plane. On board, two or more people. But the aircraft will suddenly crash in Lavau-sur-Loire, in Loire-Atlantique. At 71, the journalist and half-brother of Julien Clerc died, as did the other passengers whose bodies have not been found. The same morning, around 11 a.m., the aircraft will take off from Loudun in Vienne to reach La Baule. “It did not transmit any distress message. The available flight data allow the flight path to be followed until 11:42 am, when it disappeared from radar. It was then located near Lavau-sur-Loire” , indicates the press release from the St-Nazaire prosecutor’s office. “Very quickly, the alert was given and the emergency services started”.

This research is made particularly difficult

The alert being launched, the investigations started and the first debris of the device were “spotted in the canals, in particular a wheel and a piece of registration. At present and despite searches, no body has been found”, indicates the parquet floor of Saint-Nazaire. But it seems that divers have seen two bodies in the wreckage. “This research is made particularly difficult because the plane was submerged several meters in an area subject to very strong currents, and in which visibility for divers is almost zero”, explains the parquet floor of Nanterre. At this stage of the investigation, the bodies could not yet be formally identified.

However, thanks to airport records, the name of Gérard Leclerc has been identified as the pilot of the plane. Huge journalist, the half-brother of Julien Clerc leaves behind a wife, Julie and three children: Antoine and Mathieu, twins born in 1982, and a daughter, Charlotte, born in 1987. Since the announcement of his death, many personalities have paid tribute to him, such as Pascal Praud, who wrote a moving text on Twitter.

“Gérard Leclerc was an honest man. He was also a nice person. I liked his intelligence, his humor, his distance. I liked our complicity, I liked our disagreements, I especially liked that he was present on the set. Gérard is inseparable from the success of our program on CNews. He was there the first day. Like all those who knew him, I have immense pain tonight. I loved him so much. I think of Julie, her children, Julien, her family. May he rest in peace.“