Fatal plane crash: Glacier releases wreckage after 54 years

Global warming is making the earth's ice-covered areas smaller and smaller.

Fatal plane crash: Glacier releases wreckage after 54 years

Global warming is making the earth's ice-covered areas smaller and smaller. Glaciers are also receding in the Alps. This is how the debris of a plane that crashed in 1968 reappears on the surface.

More than 50 years after a small plane crashed in the Swiss Alps, a glacier has released debris from the plane. The aircraft parts were found on Thursday on the Aletsch Glacier in the southwestern canton of Valais, the police said. According to initial investigations, they belonged to a Piper Cherokee plane that crashed at the end of June 1968. They should now be recovered as soon as possible.

According to local newspaper reports, a teacher, a doctor from Zurich and his son were on board when the plane crashed 500 meters south of the Jungfraujoch between the Jungfrau and Mönch peaks. The bodies could be recovered at the time, but not the machine.

Because of the glaciers melting as a result of climate change, it is not unlikely that more plane wrecks or wreckage parts would be found, the police said. For security reasons, finders should not touch them, but mark the spot and report it to the police immediately.

(This article was first published on Saturday, August 06, 2022.)