Two pilots tragically lost their lives in a mid-air collision involving two Dassault Rafale fighter jets over northern France, Wednesday, which sparked a large-scale military rescue effort to search a remote forest. Following an intense ten-hour search operation, the authorities confirmed the devastating news that two servicemen had perished in the crash.

The aerial accident took place over Colombey-les-Belles in north-eastern France, just past 10:30 pm, with shocked locals reporting "debris everywhere" and a thunderous blast rocking the vicinity. One pilot, flying solo in one of the £130 million aircraft, managed to eject from his jet and was located swiftly, injured but awake, and taken to a local hospital.

However, for the other jet's occupants, flight instructor Captain Sebastien Mabire and apprentice Lieutenant Matthis Laurens, the search would end in tragedy. Both fighter planes originated from Saint-Dizier Air Force Base, a pivotal site for training French fighter pilots.

In the wake of this national tragedy, President Emmanuel Macron expressed sorrow on Twitter, stating: "We learned with sadness of the deaths of Captain Sebastien Mabire and Lieutenant Matthis Laurens, during an air accident during a Rafale training mission. The Nation shares the grief of their families and brothers in arms at Air Base 113 in Saint-Dizier."

"I was eating, a plane flew over me, it was heading north, there was like an explosion and it caught fire," Laëtitia, a resident of nearby Vosges said. "It fell on the woods, it crashed, near the Colombey-les-belles road. I only saw a plane. It made a huge black cloud."

"We heard a loud noise, around 12:30 pm," Patrice Bonneaux, deputy mayor of Colombey-les-Belles, told French media. It was not the usual sonic boom of a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier, he said. "It was a strange noise, a percussive sound".

"I assumed that two planes had collided, but we didn't believe it."

The Dassault Rafale is the workhorse of the country's air force, a multi-role fighter that has been in service for over two decades and has been deployed around the world, firing laser-guided missiles in Afghanistan (2007) and striking Jihadist camps in Mali (2013).

The French MOD has opened an accident investigation into the incident, which occurred on a refueling training mission. The country's air force said: "Security and judicial investigations are opened to shed light on the reasons for this accident."

There has not been a major Rafale crash for many years, with just two major incidents in 2007 and 2009. In the first incident, a disoriented pilot dived 4000 metres and crashed, while in the 2009 incident two trainee pilots collided while landing on an aircraft carrier, killing one.