Thierry Sabine was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 wrangler, motorcycle

Motorcycle

A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

 racer, and founder and main organizer of Paris Dakar.

In 1977 he got lost in the Libyan Desert

Libyan Desert

The Libyan Desert covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 km2, it extends approximately 1100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle...

 during the Abidjan

Abidjan

Abidjan is the economic and former official capital of Côte d'Ivoire, while the current capital is Yamoussoukro. it was the largest city in the nation and the third-largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris, and Kinshasa but before Montreal...

-Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

 Race. During this time he decided that desert would be a good location for a regular rally, where every amateur of racing life could check his abilities. In December 1977 he arranged an edition of the race with start situated in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and the finish line in Dakar

Dakar

Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

. He devoted subsequent years to organizing the Paris-Dakar.

Sabine was killed when his Ecureuil helicopter crashed into a dune at Mali during a sudden sand-storm at 07:30 p.m. on Tuesday 14 January 1986. Also killed onboard was the singer-songwriter Daniel Balavoine

Daniel Balavoine

Daniel Balavoine was a French singer and songwriter. He was hugely popular in the French-speaking world, and inspired many singers in the 1980s, such as Jean-Jacques Goldman, and Michel Berger, his closest friend...

, helicopter pilot François-Xavier Bagnoud, journalist Nathalie Odent and Jean-Paul Lefur who was a radiophonic engineer for RTL

RTL (French radio)

In France, RTL is a popular nation-wide commercial radio network owned by the RTL Group.In 1931, Radio Luxembourg, the public radio network from Luxembourg, was privatised. Beginning in 1946, it could be heard easily in France. Until the 1980s, only the French public radio networks could transmit...

.

He was featured in the movie A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later is a 1986 French drama film directed by Claude Lelouch and is a sequel to Lelouch's 1966 film Un homme et une femme. It was screened out of competition at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:...

that came out in 1986.