Since Monday, April 13, large American planes have been flying over the sky of Lorraine, particularly in Moselle-Est. These are military precision drop exercises that take place every year. Many onlookers are making the trip to observe them.
Above Grostenquin, Saint-Avold, Morhange, and many other communes in Lorraine, you can see American planes! They are stationed all year round at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, one of the largest US Air Force bases in the world, and they are conducting exercises. As witnessed by reactions on social media since Monday, April 13, these are training sessions that have been happening for years. Each time they pass by, in the late morning and early evening, curious observers gather to watch them.
“It’s impressive!” says Nicolas Muller, a 23-year-old resident of Saint-Avold. When he knows that the planes are approaching Grostenquin, he drives there. “It’s quite impressive! Because these are planes that we are not used to seeing,” he says. They are transport planes, Lockheed C-130 Hercules with four propellers. “We are lucky to observe planes from another country, coming to train here. It’s really exciting!” he adds.
With a friend, he created in late 2025 the Facebook page “Les guetteurs du ciel-Grostenquin”. They both share information about these planes and their paths by using a geolocation app: “They come down very low in the Vosges, sometimes even to Alsace, and line up above the Grostenquin runway for their drops,” he explains. He has witnessed precision drops: “often heavy cargo, so crate drops, but also, more rarely, troops. The first time I saw it was last year,” he recalls.
Passionate about aviation since watching the movie Top Gun in his childhood, Nicolas Muller also shares all his photos on the same Facebook page. Besides American military exercises, he mentions seeing all kinds of planes throughout the year: Dutch Apaches, Tiger helicopters, and Mirage 2000 from the French army.
“We get the feeling that the Grostenquin base is abandoned, but in reality, it is still very much used by the armed forces, and that’s what we wanted to talk about on our Facebook page,” explains Nicolas. He is pleased to see many other people commenting and sharing their photos to continue telling the story of the Grostenquin Air Base.
Contacted by ICI Lorraine, the French and American armies declined to communicate the end date of these exercises. In 2025, the former Grostenquin Air Base hosted nearly 6,000 caravans and 26,000 travelers during the evangelical gathering “Vie et lumière”. In late January 2026, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced in the National Assembly that there would be no more gatherings since military exercises are planned during the summer on the base.
