http://www.foxnews.com/world/011000/swisscrash.sml Small Plane Crashes in Switzerland; All 10 Aboard Killed 6.58 p.m. ET (2358 GMT) January 10, 2000 By Ernst E. Abegg ZURICH, Switzerland  A twin-engine airplane belonging to the Swiss regional airline Crossair turned into a fireball and crashed into a field Monday evening, witnesses said, killing all 10 people aboard. Officials couldn't immediately confirm the details of the Saab-340's crash, which happened minutes after it left Zurich's main airport, bound for the east German city of Dresden. But burning wreckage of the 33-seater was scattered for nearly 300 yards at Niederhasli, just north of the runway at Zurich's Kloten airport.

"We know that seven passengers and three crew members have lost their lives in this accident, and that is very hard to bear," Philippe Bruggisser, chief executive of Crossair and Swissair parent SAirGroup, told a news conference.

The identities and nationalities of all the victims were not immediately released. But Bruggisser said the captain, a Moldovan national, had 8,500 hours of flying experience. The co-pilot was a Slovak and the flight attendant a Frenchwoman, he said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Andreas Heiter of the air traffic agency Swisscontrol said the weather was normal and there had been no indications that anything was wrong with the aircraft.

Fritz Grotz, Crossair technology chief, said the airplane type had a very good safety record. Previously there had been four crashes of the plane type worldwide, he said.

With wreckage strewn around the crash site and close to houses near the airport, a large-scale recovery operation was under way and Zurich airport was temporarily closed after the crash.

The Saab-340 is widely used in the United States and elsewhere as a commuter plane.

Crossair official Andre Dose said it was the first time in Crossair's 25-year history that the regional airline had lost an aircraft.

It was the worst accident to hit the SAirGroup since a Swissair MD11 flying from New York to Geneva crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Canada in September 1998, killing all 229 people aboard.

-- Not Y2K of course not (noty2kofcourse@noway.com), January 11, 2000