Crossair Flight 498

The museum locomotive 1998 in Zurich

The Crossair Flight 498 should lead on 10 January 2000 from Zurich to Dresden, the aircraft, a Saab 340, but crashed after two minutes and 17 seconds near the place Nassenwil west of the airport of Zurich, after the plane unnoticed Clockwise in a spiral had been taken. All ten passengers, three crew members and seven passengers were killed.

This was caused by a pilot error, which was due to organizational circumstances. The co-pilot executed a statement of the flight control, by having them typed with the captain in the flight management system without consultation. The autopilot was not activated, but the Flight Director. This then provided a correct indication of the flight path to be flown, but with a rotation opposite to the specification of the air traffic control, because the co-pilot had not entered with the direction of rotation.

Due to linguistic and social barriers to communication in the cockpit, the crew, the situation estimated one wrong. The attempt by the captain to follow the requirements of the Flight Directors, without the co-pilot intervened, led to a spiral dive, could not be discharged from the.

The flight had an accident far-reaching consequences for the air traffic control to Zurich, the training of the Crossair pilots and pilots without the use of JAR - FCL license.

The Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office brought in October 2007 indictment of six former Crossair managers, including Moritz Suter and CEO André Dosé. They accused them of, among other things, to have been responsible for a " culture of fear " at the airline, which led to the conscious disregard of regulations. The case was closed by the federal statute of limitations and because of unwarranted infringement of due diligence.

There is now a memorial at the crash site.