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24 killed in Swiss plane crash
11/25/2001By ERNST E. ABEGG
Associated Press Writer
ZURICH, Switzerland — Workers combing through a muddy wood found the flight recorders from a Swiss airliner that crashed near Zurich, killing 24 people, officials said Sunday. Nine people survived, two in critical condition.
The four-engine Crossair Jumbolino Avro RJ-100 crashed a few miles short of the runway Saturday night after a flight from Berlin with 28 passengers — most of them foreigners — and five crew aboard.
Authorities said the bodies of all 24 victims were recovered by Sunday evening. The survivors included two crew members, but the pilot and co-pilot were among the dead, they said.
A Zurich police statement said the passengers and crew included 10 Swiss, 13 Germans — including one who also had U.S. citizenship — three Israelis, two people from the Netherlands and one each from Austria, Canada, Ghana, Spain and Sweden. They did not release the names.
Before all 24 deaths were confirmed, Israeli officials said three prominent Israelis were among those missing and feared dead. They were Yaakov Matzner, 54, dean of the Hebrew University school of medicine; another leading doctor, Amiram Eldor, 59; and Avishai Berkman, 50, a Tel Aviv city official.
A German record company said a singer with U.S. and German citizenship, Melanie Thornton, was on the passenger list and was not among the nine survivors. She was flying to Zurich for radio and television appearances to promote her new single, said Anja Scheding, a spokeswoman for the record company X-cell. She said Thornton was from Atlanta.
Three women from a German dance-music group, Passion Fruit, were also on board and at least one was believed to have survived, Scheding said.
Authorities said the flight recorders were recovered from the partially destroyed cockpit and investigators would study them for clues to the cause of the crash, the second involving Crossair in two years. They said there was no reason to suspect terrorism.
The plane crashed as it approached a nighttime landing strip that began operating a month ago after the Swiss Transport Ministry agreed to limit airplane noise above nearby Germany.
The runway is considered more difficult to approach than two others used previously, and the agreement with Germany allowed the use of those two runways in bad weather. Officials said the pilot did not request permission to switch runways.
Rain mixed with snow was falling and visibility was poor when the Jumbolino went down just after 10 p.m. Airport officials said communication was normal until the plane suddenly disappeared from radar.
``I was walking the dog when I saw the plane. It appeared to be flying low. Then the sky turned bright orange, as if there was a sudden ball of fire,'' Franz Brunner, a local government official, said on television.
Zurich police chief Peter Gruetter said four of the nine survivors were ``well, considering the circumstances,'' three were in stable condition and two in critical condition.
In TV interviews from their hospital beds, survivors said they climbed out of the tail section of the plane, which was severed but virtually intact. Most of the fuselage was completely burned.
``It was like in a horror film, a nightmare,'' said Myriam Wettstein.
Crossair, a subsidiary of financially troubled Swissair Group, said the plane was built in 1996. Britain's BAE Aircraft Services Group makes the 97-seat aircraft.
Crossair chief executive Andre Dose said the pilot was ``very experienced'' and had worked for the airline since shortly after it started operations in 1979.