Government admits to mistakes in handling of air disaster

Moritz Leuenberger (left) attended the service along with the new Swiss ambassador, Werner Baumann Keystone

The transport minister, Moritz Leuenberger, has admitted that mistakes were made in the Swiss response to last week's fatal air crash.

Leuenberger was speaking on Friday at a memorial service in Überlingen, Germany, where he said Switzerland would do all it could to help the investigation into what caused the crash and who bore responsibility for it.

His comments came as the Swiss government announced that the president, Kaspar Villiger, would not attend a memorial service in Russia on Saturday, because the authorities could not guarantee his safety.

Seventy-one people – most of them children – died when a Russian passenger plane collided with a cargo plane over southern Germany more than a week ago. Swiss air traffic controllers were responsible for guiding traffic in the area where the crash occurred.

Leuenberger also promised that Switzerland would provide financial support to the families of the mainly Russian victims.

Misleading information

Although the investigation into the collision is still continuing, the Swiss air traffic control agency, Skyguide, has been sharply criticised for its role in the tragedy.

At the time of the crash only one controller was on duty, and analysis of the flight voice recorders has shown that the pilots were given contradictory instructions just prior to the collision.

Skyguide initially appeared to try to deflect criticism, by saying the Russian pilot had taken 25 seconds to react to an instruction to divert course.

Leuenberger said Skyguide had mishandled its response, with misleading information issued in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

“Faced with the terrible thought that we share responsibility for the deaths of 71 people, we reacted at first with uncertainty, with confused and misleading information and made omissions,” Leuenberger said.

But he said Switzerland was committed to doing everything it could to help the accident inquiry and to support the victims’ families.

“Switzerland will ensure… that the victims and their families receive help and compensation as required by law,” the transport minister said.

Feelings running high

Meanwhile, the government said Villiger decided not to attend the memorial service as he was following the advice from local officials in Ufa, the capital of the republic of Bashkortostan, where the service is due to take place on Saturday.

“The Russian Foreign Ministry… informed the Swiss embassy that as of Thursday evening emotions had risen to such a level that the safety of the Swiss delegation on the ground on Saturday would have been at risk,” Villiger’s Finance Ministry said in a statement.

According to the Russian Interfax news agency, local leaders in Bashkortostan had opposed Villiger’s attendance at the memorial in protest at Switzerland’s initial reaction to the crash.

“The Swiss president and other officials are welcome at any time, but not on the day of the funerals,” Interfax quoted Bashkortostan’s first deputy prime minister, Khalyaf Ishmuratov, as saying.

“In the first days after the disaster the Swiss, in defiance of ethical standards, accused the Bashkirian pilots of incompetence and placed the blame on them,” Ishmuratov said.

Villiger had been due to lay a wreath at the memorial and express the Swiss government’s sympathy with the families of the victims.

Most of those who died were children from the southern Russian republic, who were travelling to Spain on holiday.

swissinfo