Air Zermatt helicopter crashes in Swiss Alps

An Air Zermatt helicopter in 2018 © Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott

An Air Zermatt helicopter crashed on the Monte Rosa massif on Tuesday morning. The aircraft was destroyed, but none of the five occupants was injured.

The accident occurred at around 7.45am on the Col Gnifetti, in the Monte Rosa massif, at an altitude of almost 4,500 metres. The aircraft “entered a vortex on its approach to landing and hit the ground hard”, Air Zermatt said in a statementExternal link. During the fall, the rotor blades touched the ground and the helicopter tipped onto its side.

Five people, including the pilot and a flight assistant, were on board. None of them was injured, Air Zermatt and the Valais cantonal police said.

The aircraft was carrying glaciologists, according to Air Zermatt. It was on its way to the Margherita hut, the highest refuge in Europe, added the Valais cantonal police.

Earlier in the morning, the police had indicated that an operation “in conjunction with a helicopter” was in progress on the Monte Rosa massif.

The helicopter, an Ecureuil, was used for commercial flights and not for rescue operations, Philipp Perren, chairman of the company’s board of directors, told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-ATS. “This accident therefore has no impact whatsoever on our rescue work,” he added.

The incident is the subject of an investigation by the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board, the body responsible for determining the cause of aviation accidents.