Twenty dead after vintage plane crashes
Twenty people were killed when a vintage aircraft operating a sightseeing flight over Switzerland crashed into the Alps over the weekend.
There were no survivors, Swiss police announced yesterday, as a search and rescue operation was called off.
The historic Junckers Ju52 propeller plane disappeared on Saturday afternoon, local time, after taking off from Locarno in southern Switzerland on its way to a military airfield near Zurich.
On board were three crew members and 17 passengers aged between 42 and 84, who had paid for the chance to travel on the 1930s-era aircraft.
Among the passengers were an Austrian couple with their grown-up son. The rest were believed to be Swiss nationals.
The wreckage of the aircraft was found at 2500 metres near Piz Segnas in the remote mountains of eastern Switzerland.
‘‘Based on the situation at the crash site, we can say that the aircraft hit the ground almost vertically at a relatively high speed,’’ said Daniel Knecht, head of aviation at the Swiss Accident Investigation Board.
The cause of the accident is still unclear but investigators said they could not rule out a link to the current heatwave in Europe.
‘‘What we can rule out at this point is a mid-air collision,’’ Knecht said.
Although the Junckers plane was almost 80 years old, it was serviced after every 35 hours of flying time and was in good condition after its most recent service at the end of July.
Both pilots were experienced and had flown for regular civilian airlines and the Swiss air force.
An investigation is likely to be complicated and will take considerable time as the aircraft was not fitted with a black box or other modern data recording devices.
The German-made Junckers Ju-52 was first produced in 1932 and was one of the earliest civilian passenger aircraft.