The members of Aéro-Re.L.I.C.'s office specify that they do not make only state in these Web pages, of stories related to sites of losses of planes into which they mainly inquired and worked as much on the historical level.
| 
Your narrator,
Philippe Castellano,
is a scuba diver for more than 20 years level III, classified 1B |
After having climbed these levels of diving, it took part a long time in the formation of ' ' news recrues' ' within the club of diving of the sports association of the Hospital complex of Cannes, under cover of Philippe Brès, monitor BEES 2.
Future president of Aéro-Re.L.I.C. quickly moved towards the visit, and seeks it wrecks of all lying types along the coasts of Provence.
For that, its meeting with Jean-Pierre Joncheray impossible to circumvent guide in this speciality, was going to enable him to conclude its passion of the wrecks under water.
Consequently, they are the ancient vestiges of ships which will occupy the major part of its times of leisure, by working with many recoveries on underwater archaeological sites, all carried out under the responsibility for the Company of Subaqueous Archaeology of Frejus Saint-Raphaël.
This enriching work by excavations, being supervised by the Department of Subaqueous and Underwater Research Archaeological (DRASSM), of Fort Saint-Jeant in Marseilles
One of its best memories on the subject : the rescue campaign carried out on the wreck known as "des Sardinaux", located vis-a-vis at the point of Issambres, close of Sainte-Maxime, and discovered by Marcel Metauer in spring 1986 when, 3500 parts of potteries had lain for 300 years, intact, under 55 meters of depth.
And then arrives, this day of August 1984 when is discovered, by 42 meters of depth, the wreck of a bomber four-engined plane B-24 Liberator of the last world war, lying in the medium of the master key of bay of Agay (Var, France).
It is thus following the discovery, with his friends, of this American bomber on board of which were always a parachute, anti-Flak waistcoats, shoes and a whole heteroclite material, that was going to be definitively opened, for the author, a new way : the research of the wrecks of planes of the period 1939 to 1945, in order to identify them and to find their history.
A specific work, concerning these "air cruisers" shot down in the South-east of France has, since, considering the day under the title :
Since, the author collaborates with several regional magazines (Nice-Matin, La Provence, editions of the Cabri), and monthly magazines of the second world war (39/45 Magazine, Avions).
All that, brought to take part in several underwater operations, of which, in particular, raising of a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka of Luftwaffe, in June 1989, wreck which turned over in a museum of Sishein in its country of origin, after having rested 50 years under water of the gulf of Saint-Tropez.
Then, will come the meeting with its future associates, all more impassioned the ones than the others, by the history of the second world war and what is attached to it.
It is thus, which with Christian Vigne, Daniel Ellena, Brian Cyvoct, Gilles Gauberti, and their joined together specific competences, was born Aéro-Re.L.I.C association.
The work of association does not stop that with fundamental research, bus to date, and with the collaboration of municipalities, friendly of ex-serviceman, of private individuals, not less than 16 monuments and commemorative plates were high with the memory of pilots and/or crews, fallen into the southern France.
---o--0--o---
To date, the highest site visited by the team is at 3400 meters of altitude in the Italian Alps (Junkers Ju 52).
The deepest site visited, is under the sea, by 60 meters of depth, in front of Menton, place where in 1943 Heinkel He 111 sank (crew safe).
Between these two extremes which the sharp-edged peaks of the alpine mountains and the marine depths represent, it is today, nearly 250 planes crashes sites which were listed, the major part was visited by the team.
Aéro-Re.L.I.C. works in collaboration with many other researchers and divers of the four corners of France, Europe and the USA.
---o--0--o---
The work of investigation carried out on the crashes sites request of knowledge which can be acquired only by the experiment "on the ground" and the study of historical and technical documents referring itself to it. Thus, the analysis of in situ vestiges is it very important.
A reference on a part of Duralumin, a wreck of destroyed weapon, a case, a landing gearl, an engine, pale or a hub of propeller always in place, even 60 years later, just like the listening of visual witnesses of these dramas, the visit of cemeteries, the study of files civil and military, French and foreign make that once gathered all these data will make it possible to position to start an investigation.
This research can, in some ways, to be assimilated to true investigations evolving with the liking of collected information (testimonys, documents, photographs).
Final work requiring, him, a synthesis of most objective possible.
Before now delivering to you a part of the result of the research undertaken by the team, it is important to raise that Aéro-Re.L.I.C. worked much on the case of the disappearance of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
This site will present in the current of the year 2004, the result of the investigations carried out on this precise case whose certain lines have summers published by the author in monthly magazine 39/45 Magazine of December 2000.
