France: Two Army Divers Found Drowned

France: Two army divers found drowned

Two men aged 24 and 30 died after an accident in the Maine at Angers during an exercise.

Two soldiers aged 24 and 30 died in a diving accident that occurred on Monday night in Angers during a military diving exercise in the Maine river, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The two divers, one from the 6th engineer regiment of Angers and the other from the 1st Foreign Regiment of Engineers in Laudun (Gard), were participating in a military diving course.

The exercise began around 11 pm in the waters of the Maine, and around 2 am, contact was lost with the two divers, said Angers public prosecutor Eric Bouillard to AFP.

According to preliminary information, the two divers may have been trapped in the cavity of a bridge pile spanning the river.

The search efforts allowed the recovery of the two soldiers who were in cardiopulmonary arrest when they were pulled from the water by firefighters. They could not be revived and their deaths were confirmed at the hospital around 4:30 am, added Mr. Bouillard.

The Angers prosecutor’s office transferred the investigation to the Rennes prosecutor’s office on Tuesday morning, which has military jurisdiction. The investigation has been entrusted to the Angers gendarmerie research brigade, specified the Rennes prosecutor’s office, which does not wish to communicate at this stage on the circumstances of the accident.

The diving course started in Saint-Mandrier (Var) for the marine part and continued in Angers for the freshwater part, according to a source from the army.

(afp)