GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A “desperate search” is being carried out in the Irish sea, says the BBC, for five Russian crew members of a ship that ran into trouble off the coast of Wales in the Irish Sea Saturday. One man was rescued but is reported by Irish media to have died and two others were taken to safety after they were picked up by a British RAF helicopter whose co-pilot was Britain’s Prince William.
Five remain missing in the gale-force stormy sea after their ship, the “81-metre carrier MV Swanland, issued a Mayday at about 2am Greenwich mean time – which is 3am local time”, according to the Irish Times. “They reported the hull was cracking and the ship was taking in water about 30 miles north west of the Welsh Lleyn peninsula. It is believed the vessel may have sunk in 15 minutes in a heavy gale. The RNLI lifeboats reported no sign of the hull, with two liferafts and some floating debris on the sea surface.”
The ship was reportedly carrying limestone to the Isle of Wight.
The two who were saved were clinging to a life raft when they were spotted by the helicopter.
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
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)
Swiss Alpine forests: not suitable for drunken walks in winter (view from Aigle)
Villars-sur-Ollon, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A rescue team at 06:20 Wednesday morning 17 February found a man in his early twenties on an extremely steep slope below the ice rink in Villars-sur-Ollon. He had lost his shoes and was not wearing a coat when he was found nearly four hours after he went missing during a night of visiting bars with a group of friends. The friends of the young man, who is from Vaud, phoned emergency number 117 when they realized he was missing, and made it clear that he had had too much to drink. A sizable rescue operation got underway: four people from the local mountain rescue service, three area police patrols, a dog rescue team, an ambulance and a helicopter were called out.
He was walking in 50 to 60cm of snow when he was found near a stream that he had been following.
Myles Robinson and his sister Cara
Update 2 21:37 Wengen, canton Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “We think he must be here somewhere, maybe in a house,” Sarah Robinson, mother of missing British 23-year-old tourist Myles Robinson, told GenevaLunch Saturday evening 26 December. Her son disappeared in the early hours of Tuesday 22 December from the small Alpine resort of Wengen, not far from Interlaken, without a trace. The young man was at the Blue Monkey bar in the car-free resort above Lauterbrunnen, then walked an old family friend home and chatted with her for a while before heading back to his family’s place at 02:00, a 200-metre walk. It was a clear night.
Myles Robinson has not been seen or heard from since.
He was expecting his girlfriend to join the family for New Year’s and he had just been hired for a job he was looking forward to, with a financial firm in London.
Police and the family have appealed to villagers to look everywhere for the missing man. His mother says that she takes hope from a tall, dark-haired cousin of Myles being asked on the streets if his name is Myles. “People are looking out.”
A police spokesperson told GenevaLunch Saturday, “We have no clues. Nothing. We called for witnesses and several people phoned, but they were mostly sightings from other villages and turned out to be false alarms.” He noted that the police can’t even say they suspect foul play because there are no clues on which to make judgements. The police investigation continues, focusing now on interviewing people around him.
Sarah Robinson says police have done a thorough job of contacting people who know her son well.
A search of the mountainside is unrealistic, given the rugged terrain – the area is famous for its cliffs, forests and some of the toughest skiing in Switzerland, including the Lauberhorn race. The police spokesperson told GenevaLunch that the Swiss Army loaned a helicopter for a flyover search of the area around the town, which turned up nothing.
But Myles Robinson was not lost while skiing: he was walking a short distance home from a bar in the centre of town at an hour when pre-Christmas revellers were still out. There is no evidence that he ever left the village, intentionally, accidentally, or through foul play.
“He doesn’t take drugs, he doesn’t smoke – he’d had a few drinks and might have been a bit tipsy but [the friend he walked home] says they talked for a while and he was fine,” Sarah Robinson says.
She is quick to say that the police “have been very good” and the family is getting help from a Swiss judge, but launching a search, for example a house to house hunt, in the town when there are no clues poses legal problems. Villagers are being asked to check every possible place, such as cellars and buildings they don’t use often.
“We know that his cell phone was still active at least at lunchtime Tuesday,” says his mother. But initial reports that it emitted a signal from the south end of Wengen have been put in perspective, given the realities of cell phones in the mountains. “We are unsure about the transmitters for Wengen and we’ve been told that, with the mountains, signals could bounce off of Murren or some other area.” Murren, Wengen and Grindelwald are three villages in the area that have long been favourites of the British, who helped develop the modern sport of downhill skiing in this area.
The Robinson family (father, mother, Myles and his sister Cara) whom the mother describes as “close”, has been coming to the resort for 15 years and Myles knows the area well. He is fit and an avid skier.
“He can’t just have disappeared without a trace!” Sarah Robinson insists. Several kinds of sniffer dogs have been used and they have not picked up any trail. Asked if they suspect he might have been pulled into a vehicle, which could explain the disappearance of his scent, she says, “It’s a car-free resort – I can’t imagine what kind of vehicle it would have been.” There are few roads down from the resort, and a vehicle leaving would most likely have been remarked by someone.
“We’re being as pro-active as we can. We’re talking to everyone we can. We want to keep this in front of the public. We’ve got to try to achieve something.”
The family is not discussing the case of Daniel Baptista, she says, “but we’re all aware of it.” Battista disappeared in 2006 from Wengen after taking mescaline, and there has been no sign of him since.
“At the end of the day, we just want to make sure we get him back. Alive, we hope.
“I’m living on hope at the moment.”
Ed. note: the disappearance of Myles has been followed closely by the UK media. Links: BBC, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Times, UK
Pirates holding a Taiwanese-flagged ship since 6 April off the coast of Somalia fired on a US Navy helicopter that was monitoring it, 26 August. The US Navy says that the helicopter was not hit and the crew did not return fire. The Win Far was captured 6 April and has been used by the pirates to launch attacks on other ships, most notably the US-flagged Maersk Alabama. That attack ended when Navy snipers killed three of the pirates holding the American captain. The coast off Somalia, which has had no functioning government since 1991, is particularly prone to piracy, according to the International Maritime Bureau which montitors piracy world-wide.
A helicopter and small Piper plane collided in mid-air over the Hudson River between Hoboken, New Jersey and Manhattan, New York, in the US Saturday, presumably killing all nine people aboard, although so far only two bodies have been found. Five Italian tourists were in the helicopter, touring the area. New York Times, Reuters
Le Bouveret, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The air is filled with noise and excitement – and a very large helicopter and a boat called Alinghi – as the new America’s Cup catamaran, all 90 feet of it, is airlifted from Lake Geneva to Genoa, Italy this morning, via the Saint Bernard pass. Follow it with the Alinghi team on Twitter (note: Twitter has been hit by attacks and you might not be able to log in to comment). Ed. note: FiSpace, a regular GenevaLunch photo contributor, alerted us – his elegant image of Alinghi on the lake is currently our home page featured photo)
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A helicopter with seven people on board crashed Saturday evening 20 June in the French department of Ain, near Chambéry.
