BERN, SWITZERLAND - A 46-year-old man from Zug died after he crashed while skiing in Grindelwald Tuesday afternoon 7 February. The man was coming down the First in the area of Horbach, with relatives, when he crashed, without anyone else involved. When he failed to get up, emergency help was called, but the man was declared dead on the slopes by the Rega rescue crew.
Police are investigating the cause of his death.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 27-vehicle pileup on the M5 motorway in Somerset, England, has killed an unknown number of people but initial reports list 5 dead, at least 43 injured. The accident occurred at 20:35 Friday 4 November at exit 25 northbound, near Taunton, with the crashes sparking a huge fireball. It appears that six trucks and at least 20 cars were involved in the huge crash.
Heavy rain earlier in the day Friday and patches of fog may have been involved in causing the accident, but police investigations have not yet clarified what caused the huge fireball.
Motorcyclist brakes too hard on seeing radar in Neuchatel
NEUCHATEL, SWITZERLAND – A motorcyclist going 107 kph in an 80 zone suddenly spotted a radar Sunday 2 October and hit the brakes – a little too hard, and over he went.
The radar caught him hitting the ground. Miraculously, he wasn’t injured, except for his pride and his pocketbook for he now faces a hefty fine and is likely to see his license lifted for three months.
Police in Neuchatel say they caught 18 motorcyclists speeding, in two radar checks in the canton’s mountains last Sunday. They are urging motorcyclists to use greater caution.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Yaroslavl Lokomotiv ice hockey team was killed when 44 people lost their lives in a plane crash in Yaroslavl, less than 300km northeast of Moscow. One person is reported to have survived the crash but details are sketchy and unofficial numbers for those on the plane vary. The plane appears to have crashed shortly after takeoff.
The team was traveling to Belarus capital Minsk for the first game of the Kontinental Hockey League’s new season. The railway company team came second in the relatively new league last year and has been considered one of Russia’s leading times, a serious contender for the title this season, according to state news agency Ria Novosti.
Foreigners on the team included players from Germany, Sweden and Slovakia.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Ria Novosti
Nufenen crash kills 1 man, critically injures 14-yr-old daughter
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 53-year-old Dutch man was killed Sunday 4 September when his Porsche rolled 300 metres down the slope of the Nufenen Pass in canton Valais, and his 14-year-old daughter is in critical condition following the accident.
The pair were near the pass, coming from Ulrichen when the car slipped on wet roads while overtaking another vehicle, at 16:00 Sunday. The car hit the barriers then rolled several times.
The father was killed outright during the crash.
His daughter was taken to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne by helicopter.
The driver was a resident of canton Valais, according to police.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A man driving the wrong way on the A1 autoroute early Wednesday morning crashed head-on into an oncoming car, killing the driver of that car and seriously injuring himself.
The accident happened at 06:00 near the Chavorney exit on the A1 in the direction of Yverdon. The highway in that direction was closed for more than four hours while police investigated.
The man who died was a 55-year-old Frenchman living in eastern canton Vaud. He died at the scene of the accident after his car, which had been in the left lane, plowed into the central divider.
The 51-year-old driver who was on the wrong side of the autoroute was driving without a license; he lives in canton Fribourg and the Highway Service in that canton had earlier lifted his license, but police have not said why. His car ended up on its roof, in the righthand lane. He was taken by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne. He remains in serious condition but his life is not in danger.
Several motorists had called the 117 emergency number to alert police to the driver; a police car was en route and was at the junction of Yverdon-sud and Essert-Pittet when the crash occurred.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND = The Taliban say they did it but Nato’s ISAF (International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan) says it is looking into what caused the crash of the helicopter that went down 6 August in Afghanistan, killing 31 US troops and 7 other people on board. Many of the soldiers killed were from the US Navy’s Seal team 6, a special forces unit that was involved in killing Osama bin Laden. Fox News says it was told by a Pentagon official that none of those killed were actually involved in the bin Laden attack, however.
ISAF says “the incident represents the highest number of US forces killed during a single event in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.”
Links to other sites: Fox News, ISAF, Reuters
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The AFP reports today 26 July that local journalists in China are being banned from investigating a crash between two high-speed trains that killed 39 and left hundreds of people hurt.
The trains involved in the 23 July collision, were the first generation of China’s high-speed trains designed to travel at a top speed of 250 kilometres per hour.
A first train was stopped by a power outage caused by lightning, and a second train following on the same line crashed into it.
Further details: France 24 (AFP), background information on the crash GenevaLunch
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud Police are seeking witnesses to and information about an accident that occurred at 07:35 Monday on the A1 autoroute between Nyon and Coppet, in the direction of Geneva. No one was injured when a car spun several times but the driver of another car, who was earlier reported to have caused the accident, left the scene.
The driver of that car has now gone to the police and they are seeking witnesses to establish what exactly happened.
The initial report from the police noted that a woman driving a beige Mazda 636 in the right lane, going 110 kph, used her signals to move into the left lane. As she did so she noticed a gray Q5 Audi Break with Vaud plates come up rapidly on her tail, flashing its lights at her. The driver swerved to the right to pass her, then swerved back into the left lane, suddenly braking “violently” according to police. The woman was also forced to brake and she lost control of her vehicle, which then spun several times, hitting the central barrier, coming to a halt facing the wrong way in the left lane.
The other driver continued down the road.
Anyone with information that will help clarify what exactly happened is asked to go to the nearest police station or call 021 644 4444.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A 48-year-old man who killed himself in a small plane crash over the weekend aimed for his mother’s house, canton Schaffhausen police said Monday 18 July. His 69-year-old mother was in the house at the time but she escaped injury.
The man left a note saying he would fly into her house, but he made no mention of trying to kill her, in his suicide note. The son and his mother had no contact by telephone before the crash. She has three other adult children.
The pilot, about whom police are not providing any further information, took off from the Altenrhein airport at 11:45 and he crashed into the villa shortly before 16:00. Police are still trying to determine if there were any other passengers in the plane.
Photos, video, TSR public television
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 27-year-old canton Geneva man is in critical condition following an early morning crash next to the Coppet autoroute exit. He was heading in the direction of the lake on the main road at 06:40 when, for reasons that are not clear, he ran a red light. He hit a car coming off the autoroute and was thrown heavily to the pavement.
Passing motorists provided first aid and an ambulance was called; the man was taken by Rega helicopter to the Hug, Geneva university hospitals.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A woman who was taking a driving course offered by the TCS (Touring Club Suisse) automobile club in Cossonay Friday morning lost control of her car for unknown reasons and ended up in hospital in serious condition with multiple fractures, say Vaud police.
The woman, a Lausanne area resident in her 50s, was alone in the car when she was to do an emergency braking operation on a wet road, on the driving circuit, but for reasons that are not clear she failed to brake. The car then failed to make the next right bend on the circuit and ran up a bank, flipped over several times and came to a stop 30 metres away when it hit the corner of an industrial building.
The driver had to be cut from her car and she was then taken to the St Loup hospital by ambulance. A dozen people were evacuated from the building as a precaution, with emergency personnel fearing a gas leak.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Forty-four people died and eight survivors are hospitalized with serious injuries, Russian media are reporting, when a RussAir Tu-134 airplane crashed in the northern republic of Karelie. The dead include four foreigners, a Swedish and a Dutch citizen and two Ukrainians, and a family of four with dual US-Russian citizenship, according to state news agency Ria Novosti.
The flight from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport to Russia’s northwest city of Petrozavodsk, ended several kilometres short of its destination when the plane made an emergency landing on a highway just before midnight. Petrozavodsk is about 900 km from Moscow, and it is the province’s capital.
The cause of the accident is not yet clear.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 42-year-old Swiss man who lives in the western Lausanne area, died when his small plane crashed Sunday 19 June at 17:20. The crash occurred northeast of Lausanne in the Broye aree, in a field near Hermenches, for reasons that have not yet been determined.
The pilot was flying alone. He had taken off between 16:00 and 16:30 from the Yverdon airport in a Cri-Cri MC 15 1990.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – AF447, the Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that crashed into the ocean two-and-a-half hours after taking off, killing 228 people, was out of the pilots’ control for a little over four minutes before crashing, a report by the French investigating authority shows.
France’s BEA Friday 27 May provided an initial report Friday that gives a chronology of events in the cockpit. The BEA says it is too early to draw conclusions, but it appeara likely now that the three pilots were not receiving accurate speed readings.
The conclusions, which may be part of a report the BEA says it will issue in July, could result in major legal and financial problems for Air France and Airbus if they are found to be responsible for malfunctioning and a lack of training for the pilots to handle the situation.
Reuters, in English, and Le Monde, in French, provide detailed articles on the BEA report.
The orange chassis, which held the black box with flight data for the Rio to Paris Air France 477 flight that crashed 1 June 2009, was found Wednesday 27 April. Searchers came across it during their second day of diving. French experts say the black box’s recorded data could possibly still be decoded despite several months at the bottom of the ocean, if it is found.
Divers are looking for the data, but they are also searching for bodies in the wreckage of the tail that was found only three weeks ago. All 228 people aboard the plane died in the crash.
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 43-year-old Spanish truck driver hit a parked police car on the A9 autoroute near St Leonard in canton Valais Friday afternoon 15 April. The two policemen in the car, which was stopped near signs for temporary roadworks, were slightly injured, but their car was “heavily damaged” say Valais police in a statement.
The accident, at 09:45 Friday morning, was apparently due to a moment of inattention on the truck driver’s part, say police. He was driving from Sierre to Sion and shortly before an underpass he veered off to the right and the right front of his truck went into the left rear of the police car, which was stopped in the emergency lane.
Zermatt, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 22-year-old man from canton Valais was killed Saturday night on the outskirts of Zermatt, following a ski accident. The youth left a “public establishment” on the slopes, a few hundred metres from the village, say cantonal police, carrying a young woman on his back as he skied down a floodlit piste. Shortly after joining the piste he crashed into a woman on a snowboard.
The young man went into the safety nets at the edge of the piste but was critically injured, and he died soon afterwards.
The two women were slightly injured.
Police have opened an investigation into the accident. This is the second accident in two days on slopes near Zermatt.
Helicopter crash, 6 injured, at Les Diablerets in heli-ski area
Update 17:55 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Heliswiss helicopter crashed around 12:30 near Les Diablerets, on the canton Valais side near Tour St-Martin in an area popularly known as Quille du Diable (Devils’ skittle(s)). Six people have been injured, say Valais police: two have slight injuries and four are in good condition.
Valais police say they were taken to different hospitals after being rescued by five helicopters from Air Glacier and Rega.
The group had flown from Gstaad and was trying to land in the Tsanfleuron heliski area, when, for unknown reasons, the pilot ran into problems and the helicopter, a B3, crashed about 50 metres from the landing area, next to the ski area. The pilot, 44, was carrying a mountain guide from Bern, his three clients and a ski teacher. The identities of the clients and teacher are not yet known.
The area is popular with tourists, as part of the Glaciers 3000 region.
The pilot made a mayday call at 12:30 and then the radio control in Sion lost contact with him. Rega was alerted at 12:30 and the police at 12:50.
One week ago a small plane crashed further down the Alps in canton Valais, killed all five people aboard.
Diablerets, Switzerland (photo: Valais police)
Diablerets, Switzerland (photo: Valais police)
Diableret, with its glacier, good snow and large domain, is one of the Lake Geneva region's most popular resorts (click on image to view larger)
Update 4 February / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Hungarian man in his fifties died after crashing while sledding late at night Wednesday 2 February in Diablerets, canton Vaud, cantonal police have confirmed.
He is the fourth sledding fatality of the year in Switzerland and the second in canton Vaud.
A group of some 50 co-workers were at a restaurant above the slopes and left around 22:00 to sled 7 km down, with forehead lamps to light the way. The man left the Route du Col de la Croix, closed to traffic and used for sledding, and headed off down the Vioz ski trail for unknown reasons.
The group discovered when it arrived at the bottom that he was not with them.
Hans Grugger, FIS, 2011 season
Update 5 / 23:00 Grugger’s condition critical, with thorax and severe head injuries, but life reportedly not in danger (videos)
Kitzbuehel, Austria (GenevaLunch) - Austrian skier Hans Grugger, 29, has been seriously injured after a crash on the Streif run during World Cup training in Kitzbuehel. The Streif is where skier Daniel Albrecht suffered serious injuries in a crash two years ago.
Dr Michael Blauth, head of trauma surgery, University Hospital Innsbruck, Austria, said Thursday afternoon that a team had operated on Grugger, who sustained chest and severe head injuries. TSR reports Thursday evening that a member of the Austrian team reports his life is not in danger, but that he has thorax and head injuries. The Innsbruck hospital says he will remain in intensive care for the night and no further reports will be available until Friday morning.
Disturbing television videos show his head hitting the ground hard before a long slide that ends with him lying motionless on the slope. Austrian TV commentators, watching the footage, went silent, then spoke but with very choked voices.
He lost control just seconds into the race after landing badly on an early jump, the difficult Mausefalle (Mousetrap). Didier Cuche, who came in first in the training run, said afterwards that the course was not to blame but rather a mistake made by Grugger, whose courage and skiing he praised. “The Mousetrap is a dangerous jump and if you don’t tackle it right, you’re sent flying,” Reuters quotes him as saying.
Grugger has won a number of top places in national and international races over the years, mainly in super-G and downhill. His most recent first place finish was in March 2010 in the downhill at the Austrian National Championships. He was out for most of the 2007-08 season after sustaining injuries in a crash in Bormio, Italy.
Swiss skier Albrecht only last week returned to competition. His recovery after weeks in a coma and a long rehabilitation programme has been labelled miraculous by a number of sports writers.
Albrecht’s accident occurred near the end of the Streif run. American skier Scott Macartney was also badly injured on the Streif, in 2008, close to the spot where Albrecht was later injured.
Links to other sites: Hans Grugger home page, biography with FIS (International Ski Federation), Streif downhill course description and FISAlpine profile of the Streif run
TSR video – if you are outside Switzerland you won’t be able to view this.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – An eight-year-old boy died New Year’s Eve, Vaud police announced Monday, from injuries he sustained when his sled crashed into a barn that afternoon in Gryon, near Villars. The child lost control of his plastic sled on a steep (15 percent gradient) snowy road that had been closed to traffic, and he went into the barn at full speed. He was in an area called La Poreyre, heading towards the Alpe des Chaux road.
It was the
View Larger Map“>second sledding fatality in Switzerland in three days. A 21-year-old woman died earlier in the week in Grindelwald, canton Bern.
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CFF rail traffic disrupted Monday afternoon
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Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two people were seriously injured and had to be cut from their car and a third person was slightly injured in an accident that disrupted Lausanne-Bern trains for nearly four hours Monday afternoon 6 December. The two cars collided and one of them fell 10 metres from a bridge, onto the rail line below. The accident occurred when a car going up the Avenue du Léman was hit by a car coming from Chemin de Bonne-Espérance. The first car slid and went into the bridge railing, which gave way.
Emergency authorities promptly alerted the CFF rail company, which halted train traffic on the line.
Last three cars of the Glacier Express that crashed 23 July 2010
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The 23 July 2010 accident on one of Switzerland’s most popular tourist attractions, the Glacier Express, was due entirely to the driver having an inexplicable blackout, the federal public transport specialist who has overseen the investigation told Sonntags Blick magazine.
There was no pressure on him to accelerate too soon to make up lost time, nor were there technical problems with the train or the rail line. The 34-year-old driver told his employer, the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn line, that he had a blackout at the moment he accelerated from 35 to 56 kph, against company regulations.
A Japanese tourist died when the train derailed in the Goms valley, and 42 people were injured.
Background story, GenevaLunch, 24 July 2010
Seventeen people travelling in a mini-bus near Nowe Miasto in Poland, 80 km south of Warsaw, died following a head-on crash with a truck, reports AP. The driver of the truck is injured, but his life is reportedly not in danger. Foggy roads appear to have been a factor in the crash. The Volkswagen van was carrying “far more” people than is legally allowed, apparently seasonal farm workers heading for apple and plum orchards to pick fruit.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva has seen an unusual traffic accident judgement, reports 20 Minutes, with the police department obliged to pay for a crashed car, hit by a police officer who was speeding to answer a call. Witnesses said the man, who had a blood alcohol level of 2.98, nearly six times the legal limit, had gone through a stoplight at the Place Jargonnant in Geneva when the light was green. He was hit by a police car that ran the light going 72 kph, a speed the investigation into the accident called “inappropriate”, despite wailing sirens. One of the police officers was seriously injured in the 4 June accident and the cars were totalled.
The investigation has resulted in the police insurance company reimbursing the drunk driver completely for his Audi A6, but his license has been taken from him.
L
Five people are dead but 24 remain in critical condition and at least 20 more are injured following what is being called Portugal’s worst-ever road crash. A series of accidents occurred Monday afternoon, the first one around 15:00, on the A25 near the city of Aveiro (map), with poor visibility due to a mix of rain and smoke blowing onto the road most likely responsible for the accidents. Some 200 firefighters were called to the scene, with several of the injured cut out of their cars.
Following too closely and travelling at unsuitably high speeds for conditions are being blamed, as well, for the pileup.
Links to other sites: Euronews, Noticeas de Aveiro (Por)
A tourist plane carrying 14-15 people, mostly foreign tourists according to early reports, crashed early Tuesday 24 August in the Himalayas near the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, after their plane was unable to land in Lukla, a popular trekking area in the Everest region. There are reportedly no survivors. Bad weather, with heavy rain and poor visibility, is hampering rescue workers, according to a government ministry. Foreign embassies, including the US, are trying to determine if their citizens were on board; four Americans and one Japanese were reportedly among the passengers, but the government has not given details about the others.
Links to other sites: AFP/France24, BBC, Channelnewsasia
One person died in the crash of a Colombian airliner that was carrying 131 people, but 124 are injured, with several of them in critical condition. The plane was split in two as it landed on San Andres island at 01:42 Monday morning 16 August. Bad weather was listed as the cause by some officials, while others reported that the plane was hit by lightning.
(CNN amateur video) Six people died at the scene and two more in hospital, after a night-time off-road race crash in the Mojave desert in southern California. The 200-mile race was run at night to avoid the desert heat east of Los Angeles in the Lucerne Valley area of San Bernardino County. Spectators are warned to stay well back and the course is barricaded in places where excitement is bound to occur, such as jumps, but the crowd can be difficult to control, say observers, but opinions are mixed about the safety of such races.
Link to CNN
Video
