![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
You are in: World: Europe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
Sunday, 25 November, 2001, 14:50 GMT
Zurich rescue efforts called off
![]() The plane came down in thick woods
Zurich police say 24 people died when a Swiss aircraft crashed in woodland near Zurich airport on Saturday night.
Crossair Flight LX3597 from Berlin was carrying 28 passengers and five crew when it came down in poor weather conditions on its final approach to the airport.
Local police commander Peter Grueter said the 14 others were presumed dead. "They were probably in the middle of the plane, and they are either incinerated or buried in the ground," he said. Police had initially hoped to find walking wounded wandering in the woods near the crash site, but have now called off the search and rescue operation. Fireball The plane was approaching Runway 28, a new night-landing strip only brought into operation four weeks ago. The cause of the crash is not known, but officials said the weather at the time was poor, with some rain and intermittent snow. Both flight recorders have been recovered and are currently being analysed.
There has been no word on whether the Swiss pilot and any of his crew survived. The passengers were from several countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Austria, Canada and Israel. A fireball engulfed the middle part of the plane after the crash, but the cockpit and tail areas were left largely unscathed, local police and airport officials said. The plane was a four-engined Jumbolino jet built in 1996 by British Aerospace. Crossair spokesman Patrick Jeandrain said all the company's other 19 Jumbolino aircraft would be tested before resuming flights. Troubled times Crossair, once a subsidiary of the financially troubled Swissair Group, flies between Swiss cities and other destinations in Europe.
It is the second accident involving a Crossair plane since the company was set up in 1975. In January 2000 one of its planes, a Saab 340, also crashed near Zurich on a flight from Germany, killing 10 people. Crossair's chief executive Andre Doze, who went to the scene of the crash, said the incident was "an extremely hard blow to the company". He said it was too early to speculate on the possible consequences of the incident for the company's future.
|
![]() |
See also:
![]() Top Europe stories now:
![]() ![]() Links to more Europe stories are at the foot of the page.
![]() |
![]() |
Links to more Europe stories
|
![]() |
![]() |
^^ Back to top News Front Page | World | UK | UK Politics | Business | Sci/Tech | Health | Education | Entertainment | Talking Point | In Depth | AudioVideo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To BBC Sport>> | To BBC Weather>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII | News Sources | Privacy |