GEIPAN Case 1994-01-01345 — « AF3532 » [AERO AFR] COULOMMIERS (77) 28.01.1994
A GEIPAN investigation of a UAP observed by the crew of Air France flight AF3532 over Coulommiers on 28 January 1994, independently confirmed on ATC radar and classified D1 — unexplained, markedly anomalous — after the object vanished instantaneously.
Brief
At 13:14 on 28 January 1994, the crew of an Air France Airbus A320-11 flying the Nice-to-London route observed an unexplained phenomenon to the left of the aircraft while overflying the Coulommiers region of Seine-et-Marne. The chief steward, present on the flight deck, alerted the captain; ATC radar independently confirmed the phenomenon. The object's disappearance was instantaneous, the defining anomalous characteristic in the case record. GEIPAN assigned classification D1 — unexplained, moderately consistent evidence base, with a marked strangeness character — and the investigation file incorporates gendarmerie procès-verbaux and technical notes.
Metadata
- Agency
- GEIPAN / CNES
- Release
- 2007-03-22
- Type
- PDF • .pdf
- Length
- 20 pages
- Classification
- D1
- Programs
- GEPAN, SEPRA, GEIPAN
- Tags
- Airbus A320, radar confirmation, instantaneous disappearance, Coulommiers, Seine-et-Marne, 1994, AF3532, D1, civil aviation, France
Key points
- Air France flight AF3532, an Airbus A320-11 on the Nice-London route, was overflying Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne, 77) at 13:14 on 28 January 1994 when the phenomenon was observed.
- The chief steward was in the cockpit at the time of the observation and alerted the captain to the phenomenon on the aircraft's left side.
- ATC radar independently confirmed the presence of the phenomenon, making this a dual-sensor event: airborne visual plus ground-based radar.
- The object's disappearance was instantaneous — the single most anomalous characteristic flagged in the case summary.
- GEIPAN classified the case D1: unexplained, moderately consistent evidence, with a marked strangeness character ('caractère d'étrangeté marqué').
- The file includes gendarmerie procès-verbaux and technical notes, indicating formal French law-enforcement documentation was generated.
- The case was handled under CNES's successive official UAP units — GEPAN, SEPRA, and GEIPAN — and was publicly released in 2007 as part of the first wave of French UAP disclosures.
Most interesting
- Radar confirmation places AF3532 among the rarer GEIPAN cases with concurrent airborne visual and independent ground-sensor data.
- D1 is the highest strangeness designation in GEIPAN's classification scheme; it means the object cannot be attributed to any known phenomenon after full investigation.
- The chief steward's incidental presence on the flight deck produced a two-witness cockpit scenario without any deliberate observation setup.
- Coulommiers sits within the high-density Paris Basin approach corridor, where untracked radar returns carry heightened significance for ATC.
- The incident occurred in January 1994 but the file remained non-public for 13 years, released only in the 2007 French government UAP disclosure tranche.