The Piper Cherokee crashed in 1968. The carcass was found in the Aletsch Glacier.
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Published on 05/08/2022 21:33
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The wreckage of a plane that crashed in the Swiss Alps in 1968 was discovered on a glacier more than 54 years later, police said on Friday (5 August). The remains of the device surfaced on the Aletsch Glacier in the south-west of the canton of Valais, near the Jungfrau and Mönch peaks. The Valais police said the wreck had been found the day before.
“Investigations have determined that the parts came from the wreckage of a Piper Cherokee, registration HB-OYL, which crashed at this site on June 30, 1968. The salvage work will be carried out as soon as possible,” the press release said.
An airplane wreck was discovered by melting ice on Konkordiaplatz (Place de la Concorde), a place called the famous glacier between Bern and Valais. https://t.co/26mgDNmZfz
— 20 minutes (@20minutesOnline) August 5, 2022
A teacher, a chief physician and his son, all from Zurich, were on board, according to the regional newspaper 24 Heures. Their bodies had been found at the time, but not the rubble. “At the time of the accident more than fifty years ago, the technical means of recovering aircraft wrecks in difficult terrain were limited,” the police continued.
The daily reports that it was a mountain guide who discovered the wreck during an expedition in the area. Due to climate change and the melting of the glacier, the route has changed and now passes where the aircraft parts were found. “We don’t know if the wreck was under the ice or just covered in snow,” said a refuge guard, quoted by 20 Minutes. “The debris is scattered in a radius of about 200 meters.”
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