The crash site of the plane accident at the Simplon Pass can be seen in this Valais cantonal police picture
Keystone/Kantonspolizei Wallis
A small plane has crashed in the Simplon Pass area in the Swiss Alps, killing three people on board, authorities say.
This content was published on
1 minute
AP/SRF/ilj
Police in the canton of Valais saidExternal link the Piper plane set off Sunday morning at 9 am from an airfield in western Switzerland for Italy. At around 10:30 am it crashed “due to unexplained circumstances” above the pass near the Italian border and burst into flames, a statement said.
The bodies of the pilot, a passenger and a small child were recovered from the wreckage. Police said they are still being formally identified.
The cause of the crash is not yet known. Accident investigators have started work, the statement added.
The Simplon Pass, which is 2,005 metres above sea level, connects southern Switzerland with northern Italy.
Popular Stories
More
Climate adaptation
Why Switzerland is among the ten fastest-warming countries in the world
Train vs plane: would you take a direct train between London and Geneva?
Eurostar is planning to run direct trains from Britain to Germany and Switzerland from the early 2030s. Would you favour the train over the plane? If not, why not?
This content was published on
Swiss companies are increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals. In the past quarter, every single company in this country was the target of a cyber attack an average of 1097 times a week.
Swiss households faced 21 minutes of power outages in 2024
This content was published on
End customers experienced an average of 21 minutes of electricity interruption in 2024. This resulted in 0.34 power outages per capita. The duration of electricity interruptions increased by three minutes compared to the previous year.
Swiss citizens will be voting on restricting wind farm expansion
This content was published on
On Friday, the Association for the Protection of Nature and Democracy submitted two initiatives aimed at curbing the expansion of wind farms. More than 110,000 signatures have been collected.
E-bike riders regularly break speed limit in residential areas
This content was published on
Fast e-bikes regularly exceed the speed limit in residential areas. According to a new study with data on cyclists in Zurich, they regularly reach speeds of over 30 km/h.
This content was published on
Swiss small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are struggling to find staff, a problem made more acute by the increased bargaining power of employees and increased absenteeism.
Switzerland very close to tariff deal with the US, says Roche CEO
This content was published on
An understanding between Berne and Washington in the dispute over customs barriers is close: Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker is convinced of this.
This content was published on
Late on Thursday in Geneva, pro-Palestinian demonstrators attacked the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations in the international organisations district. They poured red paint over the entrance to the building.
This content was published on
1. The Gotthard Pass is legendary. As the scene of a swearing of allegiance between the first cantons in 1291 and of resistance against wartime occupation, the Gotthard region has a unique aura. Even the Matterhorn doesn’t have the symbolic value of this massif: the cradle of the confederation, the centre of the Alps, the…
This content was published on
Officially inaugurated on May 19, 1906, it was for many years the longest in the world but it has never caught the spotlight as much as another major alpine tunnel – the Gotthard. “The Simplon tunnel has been in the shadow of the Gotthard tunnel for a long time, but actually it’s a very important…
This content was published on
The peaks were buried in clouds, but I can’t use that as an excuse for avoiding the exact border. I’d already decided that learning about this pass would be vastly more interesting than scrambling over another glaciated peak. Plenty of huge mountains coming up in the next two weeks. So today I alternated between hiking…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.