Memorial marks 50th anniversary of Switzerland’s worst terror attack

Relatives of the Würenlingen plane bomb attack victims are still looking for answers. Keystone / Walter Bieri

Some 300 people from Switzerland, Israel, Canada and Germany gathered in northern Switzerland to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of a plane bomb attack that claimed 47 lives.

The participants, including Ruedi Berlinger, co-organiser of the memorial event and son of the flight captain killed in the crash, laid wreaths and burned 47 candles.

On February 21, 1970, Switzerland was shaken when Swissair 330 bound for Tel Aviv crashed shortly after take-off from Zurich, killing everyone on board: 38 passengers and nine crew. No one has ever appeared in court for the bombing, the worst terrorist attack in Swiss history.

“We continue to fight for justice and against forgetting,” said Arthur Schneider, a local politician at Würenlingen, where the plane crashed near the German border. Schneider said that 50 years ago there had been no care assistance for the relatives of the victims, who he called the “heroes of Würenlingen”.

Jacob Keidar, Israel’s ambassador to Bern, said that each of the 47 victims are still remembered – 15 of whom were Israeli. He added that he hoped new information might shed more light on the atrocity.

Early suspicion for the bomb attack fell on the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Initial investigations into the bombing were closed in 1985, re-opened ten years later and finally discontinued in 2000.  

The case was examined again in 2016 when a journalist made claims of a political cover-up, but a Swiss parliamentary investigation found there was no case to answer.

In 2018 the Swiss federal prosecutor turned down a request to re-examine the facts behind the case.