PARIS –

Two French military jets collided in mid-air over the country’s east on Wednesday, killing two military personnel and leaving a sole survivor, French officials said.

In a post on X, French President Emmanuel Macron identified the fatalities in the Rafale aircraft accident as Capt. Sebastien Mabire and Lt. Matthis Laurens.

French media said one of the two was a trainee pilot and the other a pilot. French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on X that the remaining pilot survived.

The planes were based at the Saint-Dizier military installation in northeastern France.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Additional reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal and Camille Raynaud; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Cynthia Osterman)