Meiringen, home to the Reichenbach Falls, surrounded by high mountains and forest
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A civilian helicopter with three people aboard crashed in the mountains not far from the Reichenbach Falls made famous by British fiction’s Sherlock Holmes.
Canton Bern police say a call came in at 17:45 Thursday 24 May and rescue workers headed for the crash site near Spiggengrund in the Kander area after Rega helicopters photographed debris and fire in very rough terrain.
Most of the mountain rescue workers and firefighters had to be taken in by helicopter and the site was “secured” by the end of the evening, when the work had to be called off for safety reasons. Two people remained at the site to keep guard and the work is continuing today.
Police say it has to be assumed, for now, that all three died in the crash.
Ed. note: Reichenbach Falls was the scene of the final battle between AC Doyle’s fictional hero Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, his great enemy.
Indonesian authorities say wreck could be jet that went missing with 45 aboard
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Indonesian officials say a Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 that was on a demonstration flight but disappeared from radars has been spotted by a helicopter. The plane lost contact at 14:50 Wednesday 9 May, local time, with 45 people aboard. The plane went down near a 2,200m peak, Salak, says Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and rescue operations to check for survivors are underway but Russian media say teams have not yet reached the site. Strong winds followed by fog early Thursday slowed down the search.
The plane is the first commercial airliner made by Russian military plane company Sukhoi in a joint venture with several other Russian and international companies, including Italy’s Finmeccanica, according to the BBC. Sukhoi is reported by Reuters to have been hoping to sell 45 of the planes to Indonesia, where air travel is growing rapidly thanks to an expanding middle class
Ria Novosti reports that “The Sukhoi Superjet is Russia’s only civil airliner in production in significant numbers, and is regarded by many aviation industry analysts as Russia’s last hope of remaining as a player in civil aerospace.”
127 died on airliner’s maiden flight
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – There were no survivors among the 127 passengers and crew on a Bhoja Air 737 that crashed not far from Islamabad in Pakistan Friday 20 April, officials have confirmed. The plane was on its maiden voyage, according to Indian and Pakistani news sources.
Investigations into the cause of the crash were underway Saturday, with stormy weather expected as the culprit. Eyewitnesses told local media that the plane was already on fire before it hit the ground. Parts of the plane crashed into electricity poles and housing, reports Reuters, causing blackouts, but there were no casualties on the ground.
Links to other sites: Dawn, Pakistan; Reuters, Times of India
Man dies in Sion city centre
Youth critically injured near Fechy
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 47-year-old Valais man died in the early hours of Friday after he drove into the wall of a building in the centre of Sion, say Valais police. He was heading down towards the train station on the Avenue de la Gare when for reasons that are not yet clear he lost control of his car and drove into a wall. The accident occurred at 01:00 and the man was hospitalized in critical condition but he died during the morning.
Vaud police say an accident on the Nyon-Cottens road at 22:30, between Féchy and Aubonne, has left a 26-year-old from the region in critical condition, while a 19-year-old passenger was able to get out of their crashed car and is uninjured. The car, a purple BMW M3 crashed “violengtly” into a rail and wall next to the vineyards. The driver had to be cut out of the car before being taken to the Chuv.
Accident just 24km from Sion, where injured children, families were being prepared to fly to Belgium
Deadly accident on the A9 near Fully Friday noon
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It has been a particularly deadly week on Swiss roads, and canton Valais, still reeling from the Sierre autoroute tunnel crash Tuesday that killed 28 people, had a second fatal accident on the A9 Friday, bringing to 31 the number of people who have died on Vaud and Valais roads in less than four days.
Traffic on the A9 from Martigny to Sion was stopped and emergency traffic signs were in place after a vehicle caught fire in the emergency lane of the autoroute Friday 16 March at 11:45, near the Fully-Saxon area. For reasons that are not yet clear, a van crashed into the back of a stationary truck, catching fire. Other drivers rushed to put out the fire and to free the trapped driver, unsuccessfully.
Police have not yet identified the victim.
Fully is just 24km from Sion, where police and hospital workers were busy loading children from Tuesday’s bus crash into air ambulances to fly back to Belgium and their initial route takes them directly over the autoroute where the crash occurred.
The road was closed between Martigny and Sion from 11:35 to 16:10 and from Sion to Martigny from 11:35 to 14:40.
Three children from the bus crash remain in critical condition at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne and a motorcyclist hit by a car Thursday in Tolochenaz near Morges is also hospitalized at the Chuv, in critical condition.
A motorcyclist and his passenger died when they collided with a car in Genolier, Vaud Thursday.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The 21-year-old driver and his passenger of the same age on a motorcycle both died when their bike was hit by a car in Genolier shortly before 15:00 Thursday 15 March. The accident occurred at the Mimorey intersection in the village. The 24-year-old driver of the car was not injured but was taken to the Nyon hospital to be treated for shock.
Police are seeking witnesses to the accident and ask that anyone with information call +41 21 644 4444.
The driver of the car was driving in the direction of the lake and the motorcycle in the opposite direction when the two vehicles hit with a violent impact. The bike passenger died at the scene of the crime despite the quick arrival of a rescue team. The driver was taken by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne, where he died during the afternoon.
It was the second serious motorcycle accident in Vaud in one day; a man remains in critical condition at the Chuv following an early morning crash in Tolochenaz, near Morges, on the lake road.
Both accidents resulted in road being closed for several hours to allow police to investigate.
Bus carried two classes of 12-year-olds; 24 injured
The bus carried 58 people, with the children from two towns in Flanders, Lommel and Heverlee. It was heading home at the end of the trip.Switzerland's Val d'Anniviers, where the school group had been skiing
Update 07:10 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A bus from Belgium, carrying two school classes of children who had just finished a week of ski holidays in the Val d’Anniviers, crashed in an autoroute tunnel in Sierre late Tuesday 13 March, killing 28 people and leaving 24 injured, Valais police say.
The accident occurred at 21.15 Tuesday night. The bus had just entered the autoroute and was in the tunnel that links the west and east A9 autoroute exits for Sierre when it swerved and crashed head-on into the tunnel wall at the end of an emergency pullover area.
The tunnel was built only 10 years ago, is wide and well-lit, relatively flat, with gradual curves, and the weather was dry and clear Tuesday evening so the tunnel and tires would have been dry.
The two bus drivers died in the accident. Police investigators are trying to determine what caused the accident.
Those who were injured are being treated in four area hospitals, with some flown to the Chuv in Lausanne and one to Bern.
The families, accompanied by psychologists, will be arriving in Switzerland during the day Wednesday.
Valais police have set up a hotline
From outside Switzerland +41 848 112 117
From Switzerland 0848 112 117
Update, Valais police report in Dutch
Sierre : een ernstig ongeluk met een Bus uit belgie
De 13.03.2012rond 21,15 In de Tunnel van de autobaan in Sierre is een ernstig ongeval gebeurd .
Een bus met belgische nummerplaat is tegen de wand van de tunnel opgeklapt.
Verscheidene personen zijn ernstig verwond, Een grootscheepse hulp actie is opgezet.
De bus reed vanaf Sierre richting sion. Terwijl hij in de tunnel reed ,is de bus van de weg afgeraakt en is tegen de wand aangereden op het einde van een vluchtplaats.
Verscheidene personen zijn ernstig verwond. De hulpgroepen zijn nog altijd bezig.De gewonden zijn vervoerd naar verscheidene ziekenhuizen,
De politie heeft een hulplijn opgezet die uitsluitend voor de families zijn gereserveerd.
Small plane crash: police say not yet clear if it was landing or taking off when the crash occurred
Update 4 March SION / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The two occupants of a small plane that crashed Saturday morning 3 March on the Diablerets glacier/Tsanfleuron had to be cut out of the plane by the Sion fire department before they could be flown to the hospital in Sion.
Valais police said Sunday the pilot was a 58-year-old Neuchatel man and a 49-year-old Vaud woman, who live in canton Valais. She sustained light injuries and was able to leave the hospital. He remains in hospital with multiple fractures.
An alarm was raised by another pilot in the area at 10:50; the plane had taken off earlier from Bex, but the identity of the man and woman is not yet known, nor is the cause of the accident.
The crash occurred on the Saviese commune part of the glacier.
Les Diablerets plane crash on the glacier
Three Air Glacier helicopters and the Sion fire department were called to the rescue
Incident occurs 1 week after similar accident in Geneva
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Police in Zurich are seeking witnesses after a car crashed into a Zurich disco, the Lambada, early Friday 10 February, killing one person and injuring five others including the driver. Witnesses told journalists that the driver appeared to steer his car into the building intentionally after driving the wrong way up a one-way street at 05:30.
The 25-year-old driver had had a fight with the owner shortly before the incident. The crash killed a 39-year-old man and injured four other men and one woman, all between the ages of 21 and 36.
A week earlier, a man who had had a fight with a disco employee in Vernier, canton Geneva, drove his car into a group standing in front of the club, injuring three young people.
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.
