Greenpeace intentionally crashes drone into French nuclear power plant to reveal security vulnerability

PARIS -- Greenpeace France crashed a drone designed to look like Superman into a French nuclear plant this morning to demonstrate its vulnerability.

The environmental organization published a video on its Twitter page showing a Superman-shaped drone flying over the Bugey nuclear plant, located about 20 miles from the city of Lyon. The drone then slams into a building inside the nuclear plant.

Airspace surrounding and above nuclear plants are no-fly zones in France.

The drone crash was a "symbolic" effort to underscore security vulnerabilities at the nuclear plant, according to Greenpeace France officials, but that's not how the state agency that operates all of France's 19 nuclear power plants saw it.

Officials at the state-controlled company Electricity de France (EDF) said in a statement sent to ABC News that two drones had flown over the Bugey nuclear site this morning and that one of them has been intercepted by French police.

“The presence of these drones had no impact on the security of the installations,” EDF officials said in the statement, adding that the company will file a police complaint.

Greenpeace France activists said that one of its "militants" piloted the drone and argued that “this symbolic action again highlights the extreme vulnerability of this type of buildings, which contain the highest amount of radioactivity in nuclear plants."

The environmental activist group says the drone was harmless. “The only goal was to demonstrate the vulnerability of these installations” the statement reads. “This action proves that the airspace is not impregnable. These installations are easily accessible and extremely exposed to outside attacks."

It’s not the first time that Greepeace activists breached the security of a French nuclear plant to underline its vulnerability. In October 2017, activists entered the Cattenom nuclear plant in eastern France and set off fireworks.