Updated
LucerneCrash in the lake: the pilot and the passenger were saved
On Monday morning, a small plane damaged in Lake Quatre Cantons. The occupants were located and rescued. The passenger was hospitalized.
A small plane crashed on Monday morning, in Lake Quatre Cantons, in the Kehrsiten sector, northeast of Stansstad (NW). Lacernoise cantonal police were alerted around 9:45 a.m. by a witness who saw the aircraft fall into the lake and start sink.
An important rescue system was immediately deployed and the two occupants of the aircraft were rescued by a civilian boat, the police said in a press release. The pilot, a 78 -year -old Austrian, came out unscathed, but his passenger, a 55 -year -old Swiss, was injured and had to be taken to the hospital.
England and impossible device
According to the first elements of the investigation, the plane had just taken off from Buochs aerodrome (NW) when, for a still unknown reason, it had to perform an emergency bitter, in the Lucerne region, between BĂĽrgenberg and Hertenstein.
The device was engulfed by the waters of the lake and research continued on Monday to locate it. Kerosene escaped and caused pollution, fights by floating dams. Research operations have led to disturbances and restrictions on maritime traffic on the Lake Quatre-Cantons, continues the press release from the Lucerne cantonal police, which emphasizes that several police and firefighters from various cantons, as well as a rescue helicopter and another from the Swiss army, were mobilized for this intervention.
An investigation was opened to determine the causes of this accident, under the aegis of the public prosecutor of the Confederation, and in coordination with the Swiss Security Inquiry (SESE) service, which intervenes during incidents involving planes, trains or even boats.
A first aborted flight an hour earlier
According to elements appearing on the Flightradar24 site, the plane took off from Buochs at 9:39 am. But after having barely traveled a kilometer, he crashed into the water. However, he would have already made a first attempt earlier in the morning: the aircraft would have taken off at 8:21 a.m. and returned to Buochs aerodrome after seven minutes of flight.
For the time being, we do not know what has motivated this return to square one. But the weather conditions, this Monday morning in the region, were not famous: according to an expert contacted by our colleagues of “20 minute”, a violent storm cell raged in the sector, which makes it one of the possible causes of the first shortened flight, as well as the accident that occurred a little more than an hour later.
(jfz, fcc)
