Newsstand - CrossAir plane crashes near Zurich

Filed at 2:09 p.m. EST

By The Associated Press
ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- A Swiss airliner carrying 10 people crashed Monday evening near Zurich, police and airport officials said.

The Saab-340, owned by Swiss regional airline Crossair, went down at Niederhasli, just north of Zurich's Kloten airport, just after taking off for the German city of Dresden, airport authorities said in a statement. It was carrying seven passengers and three crew members.

The plane burst into flames and wreckage was strewn for several hundred yards around the crash site. Zurich police said ``several'' people were killed but gave no further details. The cause of the accident was unclear.

Crossair is a subsidiary of Swissair parent SAirGroup


Unless I'm mistaken, it's the first in the airlines history (about 25 years?)

[This message has been edited by doc (edited 01-10-2000).]

This is horrible newss. I have not seen any news reports.

My colleague has extraordinary preception, and has been known to report news items as much as 11 months in the future!

Can we take a break from the personal barbs, when there's a plane crash?

Here's a link to a story about this crash: http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid%5F598000/598004.stm

Swissair's official english/french/german press-releases http://www.swissair.com/lx/pressrel.htm (it happened 10km from my home).

Or we could all be really civil and ALWAYS avoid the unnecessary flaming personal barbs!

On the other hand, see:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/355840.asp

Nothing personal here but civility, my dear Mr. Watson, is as much about restraint in posting. The sheer volume of your contributions is tiresome, and the content of some (but not all) of your posts is quite unilluminating. Please think twice before clicking the submit button. Thank you.

Dr. Pfp, I have no problem with doc's postings, but it seems to me that you are sorely in need of your own prescribed medication - physician heal thyself.

Dr. PfP: Many here find Doc's posts interesting and useful. Several months ago, Doc offered to condense his "In the News" posts into a single digest but many voices said no, keep doing it the way you're doing it, we like it that way.

Wow. This is the first time since I've started frequest flying that an airline and airplane I actually fly has gone down. I've taking CrossAir many times in and out of Zurich.

I'm taking a similar flight from Torino to Brussels tomorrow. Yikes!

Stimpy,
Just cross your fingers that nothing will ever happen to your flight. Good Luck ... that is why most airlines hate when mishaps are publish all over the front page but will be happy if it is printed somewhere in the middle of the paper in small columns.

In today's Swedish press (SAAB being manufactured in Sweden):

The crash in Switzerland of a SAAB 340 plane is the second fatal crash within 2 years.

SAAB is sending 3 engineers to the crash site to assist with the investigation.

The aircarft was a SAAB 340 Cityliner which is one of the worlds most commonly used regional aircraft and the most common used within the USA.

SAAB claims that the 340 is a very safe aircraft that has earlier only been involved in two fatal accidents. One near Amsterdam in 1994 where the accident was due to pilot error and one in Taiwan in 1998 where the reason has not yet been established.

As well as sending the 3 engineers, SAAB has established its own investigation in order to quickly establish whether the accident was due to a fault with the aircraft or possibly in the routines that are used during flight.

Well my flight was OK, but I just saw on CNN that another Swiss plane went down today in Libya. This was a private plane ferrying oil workers according to preliminary reports.

Not a good week for Swiss aviation.