The three-part Netflix docuseries Cocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Feet lifts its provocative title from what French news outlets dubbed a 2013 incident: the case of two pilots and two other French nationals, arrested on a runway in the Dominican Republic, who were in possession of – or at least physically nearby – 26 roller cases packed with 700 kilos of coke. The case was a big deal in France, with alleged connections to media figures and politicians, and even involved a gonzo quasi-military operation to help the accused jump bail. But as Cocaine Air begins, it’s with one big question: How could the pilots not know they were flying a cocaine taxi from the DR back to France?
Opening Shot: “The facts in this documentary have been meticulously verified,” reads a disclaimer. But then it builds in 5000 miles of wiggle room. “However, It’s possible that some people may not be telling the whole truth.”
The Gist: On the night of March 19th, 2013, as they prepared their Falcon 50 business jet for takeoff from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, French pilots Bruno Odos and Pascal Fauret were detained by authorities from the DR’s anti-drug squad. They weren’t alone in the aircraft – also detained were reserve pilot Alain Castany and Nicolas Pisapia, a businessman. And besides the French nationals aboard, the plane also carried two-dozen suitcases packed with bricks of cocaine. Sitting for interviews in Cocaine Air, Odos and Pascal say they were confused at the time, because they’d done nothing wrong, and didn’t know anything about their cargo. (“We’re pilots, not baggage handlers.”) But Dominican authorities disagreed, and the four Frenchman were thrown in a Punta Cana prison.
“You feel a moral obligation to investigate the international drug trade,” says Christine Saunier-Ruellan, the French magistrate who caught the “Cocaine Air” case. But as Saunier-Ruellan looked into it, direct evidence against the pilots was hard to come by – these guys were former pilots in the French air force, seemingly above suspicion – and a lot of other tantalizing clues instead became misdirects. Like a link from the plane’s manifest to Alain Afflelou, a rich guy famous for his eyewear ads in France. (Afflelou is also interviewed here.) Or Éric Le François, the pilots’ lawyer, who says in Cocaine Air that the splashy, filmed tarmac sting itself was all one big show. “The entire operation was engineered,” says Le François, to pump optics for the chief of the Dominican Republic’s drug interdiction bureau.
Above suspicion, sure. But if the pilots didn’t know anything about the illegal contents they were carrying, then who did? And anyway, who stuffed it in their cargo hold? Cocaine Air gets a lot of flight time out of asking these questions…and then asking them again in different ways. It brings in a guy introduced as “Pablo Escobar’s former chemist,” asks him if cocaine has a smell, and then moves on. And it returns to a crowded courtroom in the Dominican Republic, over two years after they were first detained, for the trial of Bruno Odos and Pascal Fauret. But if you thought this docuseries was gonna read out a definitive verdict in its first episode, then maybe you aren’t familiar with Netflix’s love of stretching stuff like this out.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Cocaine Air co-director Maxime Bonnet also directed The Billionaire, the Butler And the Boyfriend , a 2023 Netflix docuseries about a scandal involving Liliane Bettencourt, a wealthy French businesswoman and socialite. That docuseries tracked links to Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, whose name also surfaces in Cocaine Air.
Our Take: We’ll take a lead off that emoji shrug disclaimer that opens Cocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Feet: This is definitely a docuseries about a newsworthy scandal. However, it’s possible it doesn’t need to be in three 45-minute parts.
Take the editing in Cocaine Air. It often riffs in a Soderberghian way, with people or footage appearing in black-outlined boxes, in motion from left to right – a visual suggestion we’re looking at the participants or components of a swanky international heist. The accompanying music also gives off a bit of swinging spy movie sizzle, even if the same news or police footage is used over and over to the point of bland redundancy. (Read: not swanky.) By the time Episode 2 rolls around, and Cocaine Air introduces the involvement of an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire and political operative in a plot to ferry the French pilots, Odos and Fauret, out of Dominican territory like he’s Tyler Rake in Extraction, we felt like the facts of this case – even if they were “meticulously verified” – were being stretched to favor style over substance.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: 2 years and 4 months after their arrest on the tarmac, a trial began for the men accused of being drug traffickers. Footage from inside the courtroom appears. “We declare the defendants” – sorry, Netflix is gonna drag this thing out and make you smash that “next episode” button.
Sleeper Star: We’re not sure if the handwritten “It’s all connected”-style map investigating magistrate Christine Saulnier-Ruellan is seen to pore over is real, or even whether she wrote it. But at least it looks cool.
Most Pilot-y Line: After Christine Saunier-Ruellan flew to the Dominican to question the pilots herself, their case only got more dicey. “I considered it more than likely they were somehow involved in the movement of the cocaine.”
Our Call: Cocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Feet has a few kernels of intrigue to work with, and the participation of many of the major players in a drug scandal that stretched from the Caribbean to Aix-en-Provence. But to us, it also feels like it’s majorly stretching its material. Stream It, but you might also get the drift early be looking for a flight out.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.