All news

In Switzerland 20 killed in vintage plane crash

This fugure includies 11 men and 9 women, Grisons cantonal police said

GENEVA, August 5. /TASS/. Twenty people were killed in Switzerland when a vintage Junkers 52 plane crashed on Saturday, Grisons cantonal police said.

"20 people died, including 11 men and 9 women, in a crash of the Junkers plane," a police spokesman told RTS TV channel.

According to police, the Junkers 52 plane, manufactured in 1939, was en route from Locarno to Duberndorf. The plane crashed at the height of 2,540 meters above the sea level on the side of the Piz Segnas mountain. The crew did not send an SOS signal.

The Federal Office of Civil Aviation has banned flights over Piz Segnas until August 8. The federal prosecutors are conducting an investigation into the crash.

Police said the plane did not have flight data recorders and this would complicate the investigation. The investigators have ruled out the theory that it collided with an object or that there was an explosion onboard.

The vintage plane was owned by the Association of the Friends of the Swiss Air Force. The aircraft was bought in 1981 and carried out flights over the Alps on several occasions.