A French aviation industry and MP was killed in a helicopter crash with the pilot, authorities said.
Olivier Dassault (69) was heir to a powerful family business that made Falcon private jets and fighter jets from Rafale and owns many other businesses, including the newspaper Le Figaro.
According to the local prosecutor’s office in Lisieux, an investigation into final charges of manslaughter is underway on Sunday following the accident in the city of Touques in Normandy.
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French MP Olivier Dassault smiles in Paris on 1 September 2014. (AP Photo / Jacques Brinon, File)
The French National Air Accident Agency, the BEA, said the helicopter crashed just after take-off from a private airport.
BEA investigators traveled to the site Monday.
Forbes magazine lists Olivier Dassault as one of the 500 richest people in the world by 2020.
He held executive positions at the family-owned Dassault Group, and has been in the lower house of parliament since 2002 as a legislator for the Conservative Republican Party.
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President Emmanuel Macron in a tweet paid tribute to an “industry captain, MP, local elected leader, air force official” and said: “his brutal death is a great loss.”
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