The Marseille diver Luc Vanrell in front of the debris of the Saint-Exupéry plane that he found – GERARD JULIEN / AFP
- On May 27, 2000, a Marseille diver, Luc Vanrell, announced that he had located the wreckage of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s plane with certainty.
- The writer disappeared in flight on July 31, 1944.
- Twenty years later, 20 minutes has found this diver who tells, with the same passion, what constitutes the story of his life.
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It was May 27, 2000. Just twenty years ago. The news spread like wildfire. “It went around the world in no time,” recalls Luc Vanrell. It must be said that the Marseille diver has just dropped a bomb. After decades of mystery and speculation, Luc Vanrell claims to have found and identified off Marseille the wreckage of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s plane, who died in mysterious circumstances in
Mediterranean while in operation on July 31, 1944, in full
Second World War.
Twenty years later, Luc Vanrell tells this story with the same passion. The story of a chance encounter between a young diver and a few pieces of metal, placed twenty thousand leagues under the sea, off the island of Riou, not far from the Old Port. We are then in the 1980s. The young Luc Vanrell dives into the corner for training, and crosses the path … of an airplane, posed there, on the bottom.
Everything starts with a curb chain
He first believed in a device of the German army which crashed there in the middle of World War II, as there are dozens in the Marseilles seas, a vast submerged cemetery. Passionate about photography and underwater wrecks, Luc Vanrell immortalizes his discovery on film, with no other intention than to bring back a memory. This rather special detective finds himself faced with an additional enigma, one more cabin whose history he will try to retrace, like so many others to come.
This investigation, unfortunately, skates. Impossible to identify what then appeared to him as a mysterious wreck of the Luftwaffe. Until 1998. A Marseilles fisherman said he had found in his nets a curb chain, branded… Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. “At first it was just background noise, just a rumor,” recalls Luc Vanrell. It is starting to come out discreetly in the press. I see the research starting just as quietly. “
Photos in a newspaper
Some months later, Sciences and Life devotes an article to this discovery. “In this article, they say that this whole curb story was false,” says Luc Vanrell. Most importantly, there are photos of a wreck taken during the search. And I recognize right away. “By dint of potashing specialized books and photographing dozens of stranded planes, Luc Vanrell identifies in these photos the wreck he had encountered and photographed a few years ago, off the island of Riou. Remains that turn out to be not those of a German plane, but of an American model, a Lockheed P-38 Lightning. The same one aboard which Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, whose curb chain was found in the same sector as this carcass, has disappeared.
Luc Vanrell’s investigation begins again. The diver hoards “a cubic meter of pounds” on this type of aircraft, contacts American veterans. It’s about being sure of yourself before you get the news. With the help of experts, historians and enthusiasts, the diver achieves a certainty: only four planes of this type have disappeared in the Mediterranean. Three of them have been located and identified. Only one has so far been impossible to find: that of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
“My God, this is Saint-Exupéry”
Quickly, by dint of collecting evidence, the diver comes to the end of his research, not without a certain sadness. “The case was almost over,” he explains with a smile. But it is always difficult to stop an adventure under the sea. So maybe I have dragged on, to avoid stopping, victim of my readings of Saint-Exupéry. He remains the idol of my youth. “
Before making the big revelation, Luc Vanrell returns one last time to sea, to meet the aircraft. “I wanted to check something,” he says. On the plane, there was a small luggage compartment for the pilot. I see a white cloth. On entering the wreck, I manage to unhook it. I tell myself that a mechanic must have left a piece of fabric there before takeoff, and that it was not very serious … But when I have it in my hand, I realize that it is ” A very good quality silk scarf with a black border. A woman’s bottom that has been transformed into a scarf. There is still the knot to tie it around the neck. I am in an underwater desert, surrounded by metal sheets. I make the analogy with the cover of the Little Prince, with this scarf that floats in the wind. I put it around my neck. And I say to myself: “My God, this is Saint-Exupéry. This is his tomb.” At that moment, the wreck became the Saint-Exupéry plane. “
Once on the surface, the discovery is revealed. The Lockheed came out of the waters, scrutinized, and now exhibited at the Musée du Bourget. For his part, Luc Vanrell sets himself another goal, which he will achieve: that of finding the German soldier who shot Saint-Ex. An investigation that will last for years to clarify the circumstances of the writer’s death. Despite real progress, doubt still hangs, and theories, crazier than each other, add their share of mystery to this enigmatic tragedy. But that’s another story…
