Matterhorn victims identified
Jungfraujoch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The weekend of 15-16 October was a deadly one in the Swiss Alps, with three people dead and one in critical condition following three separate accidents at high altitude.
Speedflyer fails on takeoff from Jungfrau
A speedflyer died Saturday 15 October when his Jungfrau takeoff failed. The 25-year-old Swiss man, paragliding with skis, was with two friends whose flights went off without a hitch at 14:00, but for reasons that Bern police have not provided, he had trouble taking off. He ran into a wall of ice and fell to his death. The trio had left from the Jungfraujoch, a popular tourist destination, to climb to the top of the Jungfrau, at 4,158 metres.
The young man’s body was recovered from a crevasse by a Club Alpine Suisse search and rescue team working with Air Glaciers.
One climber has died and a second is in critical condition after they fell while ascending the north face of the Matterhorn Sunday.
Grand Combin claims 20-yr-old
A 20-year-old Valais man died early Sunday 16 October after he slipped while climbing the Grand Combin in canton Valais. He and a friend had just left the Valsorey hut in order to climb the Combin de Valsorey, 4,184 metres. He was wearing hiking boots equipped with crampons when he slipped and fell about 400 metres to his death.
Zermatt North Face: roped pair fall
One climber, age 43, was killed and his companion critically injured after the first man apparently slipped on the North Face of the Matterhorn, at 07:30 Sunday morning and the pair, who were roped, fell several hundred metres. The two, both Italian and from Brescia, were climbing up, taking the Schmid route, when the accident occurred at about 3,700 metres. The second climber, in his 20s, was flown by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne and is listed in critical condition Sunday evening.
Update 2, 21:10 Saas-Fee and Bourg-St-Pierre, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Four people have died in Valais in climbing accidents over the weekend of 11-12 July. A 47-year-old Italian climber fell more than 300 metres to his death from a cliff at about 3,300 metres altitude shortly after leaving the Mischabels hut near Saas-Fee early Sunday afternoon 12 July. He was part of a group of four Italian climbers.
