Managers acquitted in Crossair trial
A court has acquitted six former managers of the regional airline Crossair charged over the death of 24 people in a plane crash near Zurich seven years ago.
The defendants – including the airline founder, Moritz Suter, and the chief executive at the time, André Dosé – were accused of negligent homicide and bodily injury.
The Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona described as unfounded allegations that the management established a dictatorial rule and encouraged pilots to flout flight safety regulations leading to one of the worst civil aviation disasters in Switzerland.
At the end of a two-week trial on Friday, the judges ordered the payment of damages totalling about SFr850,000 ($814,000) to the six defendants.
Both Suter and Dosé said they were relieved over the acquittal. They reiterated that the crash was a tragedy which could not be avoided. The Crossair management worked carefully and conscientiously, they maintained.
“The pilot made a mistake. But he was not a bad pilot,” said Suter outside the court.
The prosecution had called for suspended prison sentences of up to two years. It announced it would examine the verdict before deciding on appeals.
Long hours
The Crossair flight from Berlin crashed in woodland in bad weather on approach to Switzerland’s main airport of Zurich, killing 24 people and injuring nine others.
The civil aviation authorities concluded the accident was caused by an overtired 57-year old pilot who flew too low.
The report found the pilot, who died in the crash, had worked for 13 hours and exceeded the maximum duty times in the days before the accident.
For his part the prosecutor blamed the airline management for establishing a “culture of fear” and pushing pilots to ignore rules.
He also said that the Crossair bosses had failed to learn the lessons of another fatal accident near Zurich in 2000 when a plane crashed on take-off, killing ten people on board.
Suter lost his position on the Crossair board when the airline was restructured in 2001 to become the basis of the new national carrier, Swiss International Air Lines.
He later founded the Basel-based Hello regional airline.
Dosé, who now owns a consultancy firm, was chief executive of Swiss International Air Lines before it became part of the German Lufthansa group in 2004.
swissinfo with agencies
The 2001 Crossair crash was one of the worst accidents in Switzerland’s history of civil aviation, leaving 24 people dead.
In 1998 a Swissair flight came down over Canada, killing all 229 passengers and crew members.
Seventy-one people were killed when two aircraft collided in Swiss-controlled airspace over southern Germany in 2002.
Ten people died when a Crossair plane crashed outside Zurich in 2000.
Crossair was founded as a private company by former Swissair pilot Moritz Suter in 1975 under the name Business Flyers Basel.
It changed its name to Crossair in 1978 and started schedule services a year later.
In 1993 the then national carrier, Swissair, became the majority shareholder.
When Swissair was grounded in October 2001, Crossair became the backbone of the new national carrier, Swiss International Air Lines.
Crossair made its final official flight in its former capacity in March 2002.
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