Death of Emmanuel Michal
Emmanuel Michal was born in Boulogne-Billancourt on August 15, 1938. At the age of twenty he joined the Ecole nationale supérieure de l’aéronautique from which he graduated in 1961. That same year, combining theory with practice, he passed his private pilot’s license during the holidays and then flew to the oldest technical university in the United States, renselaer polytechnic institute where he stayed for a year.
On his return he had to do military service and it was quite natural in the Air Force. Escaping service during the Algerian war that had just ended, he was released after fifteen months with a qualification of military pilot and with the rank of second lieutenant of reserve.
A career of thirty years then began for him at Air France, on May 11, 1964 when he was hired in the Equipment Department of this company. He first specialized for five years in the technique of Boeing 707 and Boeing 727 and, becoming a senior engineer, he was appointed in 1971 to the Technical Flight Training Center. Two years later he joined the castle of Vilgenis near Massy where, in July 1973, he was in charge of the Ground Instruction Division.
Promoted to Chief Engineer in July 1975, Emmanuel Michal was then appointed Head of the Concorde Division and, in 1977, head of the Roissy industrial center. He is the second holder of this prestigious position and actively contributes to the commercial commissioning of this revolutionary aircraft.
Continuing his career with the modesty that characterizes him, he exercises his skills in sensitive jobs such as the evaluation of new aircraft, their certification and, finally, devotes himself to the always difficult and random exercise of foresight. For more than ten years he devoted himself to this task which put him in close contact with manufacturers, engine manufacturers and equipment manufacturers.
His last post took him to Paris, to the Group’s General Inspectorate, where he was entrusted with a subject that would become more and more important, that of environmental protection.
If the time for retirement is ringing for Emmanuel Michal in 1994, this is not synonymous for him with inaction. On the contrary, he can devote himself fully to the other activities he has carried out simultaneously throughout his career at Air France:
- first, flying in his flying club where, from 1965 to 1979, he was a volunteer instructor and which he still frequented two years ago, which represents a loyalty of more than half a century.
- then, satisfy a passion that characterizes him, which is that of transmitting knowledge. For almost twenty years, he was a temporary professor at the ENSAé in Toulouse, a course on safety and the economics of air transport. Some of you may have known him in this magister.
- finally, and this is not a side activity either, there has been all his life a genuine military vocation concretized as a reserve pilot of the Air Force, regularly frequenting the Air Sections of the territory and successfully passing his certificates of qualification. At the end of an exemplary career, his assiduity allowed him to reach the rank of reserve colonel.
Shortly before leaving Air France, in 1992, he was called upon to join our Academy because of his competence in environmental matters, a subject that has become increasingly important, to the point that it is now one of our committees that it will deal with it. As soon as he joined the Academy, he became actively involved in the organization of the symposium on “Airports of the Future”, organized in 1995, and of which he was secretary of the program committee. Notre Dame des Landes was soon to show all the difficulty of this subject.
A humble man who did not seek honours, Emmanuel Michal was a Knight of the National Order of Merit and holder of the Aeronautical Medal. He died on March 26 and leaves the image of a technician whose competence was matched only by discretion.
He gave until the end of his life the example of a smiling serenity and a deep wisdom.
