A French aviation industrial billionaire and a member of parliament died in a helicopter accident along with the pilot, officials said.
Olivier Dassault, 69, was heir to a powerful family business empire that manufactured Falcon private jets and Rafale fighter planes and owned many other businesses, including the newspaper Le Figaro.
A judicial investigation into possible charges of manslaughter is underway after Sunday’s accident in the city of Touques, in Normandy, according to the regional prosecutor’s office in Lisieux.
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The French air accident investigation agency, BEA, said the Airbus AS350 helicopter crashed shortly after a private airfield took off. BEA investigators were traveling to the site on Monday.
Forbes magazine listed Olivier Dassault as one of the 500 richest people in the world in 2020. He held executive positions in the family group Dassault, in addition to serving in the lower house of parliament as legislator of the conservative Republican party since 2002.
President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute in a tweet to a “captain of the industry, a member of parliament, a local elected leader, an officer in the air force reserve” and said that “his brutal death is a great loss”.