November 26, 2001	Monday	Ramazan 10, 1422

BIRCHWIL (Switzerland) Nov 25: Twenty-four people died when a Swiss plane crashed near Zurich, police said on Sunday, in a new blow to an airline industry reeling in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

US pop singer Melanie Thornton, 34, on tour to publicise her solo album “Ready to Fly”, was among the victims of the crash late on Saturday, police said.

Nine survived out of the 33 people aboard the 97-seat Crossair plane from Berlin, which plunged into woodland while trying to land at Zurich airport.

It was the third tragedy to hit Switzerland within two months after a massacre in the local parliament in Zug in late September, in which a gunman killed 13 local politicians and himself, and a Gotthard tunnel inferno a month ago in which 11 people died.

“Will it never end?” exclaimed Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger at a news conference, expressing his grief at the latest loss of life.

Ten people were initially said to have died, with 14 missing, but police called off a search for survivors and police commander Peter Grueter said the 14 were presumed dead.

“They were probably in the middle of the plane, and they are either incinerated or buried in the ground,” he told Reuters.

“The search and rescue phase has been ended,” he told a news conference earlier. “Unfortunately, no more survivors have been found.”

The crash was a blow to Crossair, which had been trying to win back customer confidence after air traffic plunged in the wake of the September attacks in New York and Washington by suicide plane hijackers, in which about 4,600 people died.

A total of 265 people also died barely two weeks ago when an American Airlines plane crashed in New York. Investigators have blamed air turbulence but the exact cause was not yet known.

Crossair has been designated to operate most of the destinations of failed flag carrier Swissair which collapsed financially last month under a mountain of debt.

BURNING PLANE: Survivor Miriam Wettstein told Swiss Tele24 television that she had run away from the burning plane.

“It was like a nightmare. This only happens in films,” she said. “I had no time to be scared, I was just very cold. I thought ‘I have to get out of here, the plane can explode’.”—Reuters