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TWO TRAINS SLAMMED into each other north of the Swiss city of Zurich at the start of rush hour, leaving dozens of passengers injured and train carriages upturned.
“There was an accident this morning, it’s serious, there are injured,” a police spokesperson said without providing any other details.
The collision occurred at the train station at Rafz, a town some 30 km north of Zurich and not far from the German border, between an express intercity train and a local commuter train, media reported.
The locomotive on one of the trains was smashed in, and several of its carriages derailed and tipped on their sides, photographs in local media showed.
Ambulances, fire and rescue services have rushed to the scene and service on the train line between the towns of Bulach and Schaffhouse has been suspended.
A rescue worker, who refused to give his name, told the 20Minutes daily that as many as 49 people had been injured in the crash.
“Ambulances from all regions have been mobilised,” he said.
An 18-year-old passenger on the commuter train told the paper that it had just begun pulling out of the Rafz station on its way to Schaffhouse when the conductor hit the breaks.
“An express train from Zurich came up from behind and hit the side of our train. The intercity train derailed,” said the man, whose name was not given.
Both the trains had been “quite damaged”, he said, adding that the conductors on both trains had quickly evacuated the passengers.
The Swiss are Europe’s top rail users, and their network is normally envied abroad for safety and quality.
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Awful sad. Thoughts with the families.
A good few Irish lads out in Dubai working for their engineering and maintenance department. Thinking of Ye lads. For all the armchair crash investigators, no pilot takes off with the thought that his actions will kill all on board. I’ll keep my opinions until after we have an crash investigation report. RIP.
@tom burke, my connection with the ‘manx2′ crash was budget airline & it says the plane was ‘circling’ for 2hrs when other planes had diverted but obviously this crew were under pressure to land at that airport as were the crew of ‘manx2′ flight
Sounds like a similar chain of events that caused the ‘manx2′ flight to crash in cork a few years ago,
Manx crashed in poor visibility, not stormy conditions. Indeed when it is foggy it is rarely windy.
Not that similar.
Ahh tom the aviation expert is back ..
Ah Chris
I’m merely stating facts.
In fact I’m one of the few who is not speculating.
Sorry for pointing out the obvious Tom, but in stating that this crash is not that similar to the manx crash, you’re speculating on the precise cause(s) of this crash.
Avina
You are making this painful.
I never speculated anything about the cause of the crash. All I’m doing is pointing out the facts that the weather in this incident and the weather in the Cork incident were very different.
I’m not speculating. I’m dealing with facts. There is a big difference.
Lubitz was a co-pilot. I am aware of this incident and others where members of the flight crew flew the aircraft into terrain. Hope that made your day pointing that out
There’s a video out there purporting to be of this plane crash. Doesn’t look like any accidental crash in bad weather I’ve ever seen. Plane comes down hard and fast on an almost 90 degree angle.
Sounds like poor judgement alright. Pressure to land instead of divert. If bad weather then should have diverted to airport with ILS. The mistake was the 2 hours circling…ate up the divert allowance.
But we do know its rarely foggy and windy at the same time …lol….but that is correct
There is footage of it from cctv and it looks like it nose dived into the ground? It looks nothing like a plane missing the runway. Rip to all souls lost.
Shocking. Know a few pilots down there.
6h30m flying a 738 with one confirmed and a possible second go around? Fuel?
Could of course be off the mark but if you listen to communication with ATC there’s no mention of fuel. All conversations relate to weather. That said bigger and better airlines cut it fine with fuel so hardly out of the question. It’s saying the wing hit the ground which could mean wind but it’s coming in very steep and very fast. So I could be pilot error. I’d say it’s best to leave it to the experts.
Magoo he meant anyone in their right mind you clown
The speculation police are out in force today.
Ya watch one series of air crash investigator and people become experts!!!
@quiggers im not trying to be an aviation expert nor an air crash investigation expert but like yourself i do have friends in that field & i do read all these reports from accidents so i do have to a ‘certain extent’ & i use that very carefully understand the reasons behind these incidents
How do you know the captain made any “fatal decision” ?
@ Helena…
I wish the journal got their facts right! Poor journalism, that’s what it’s called. Not ALL passengers were Russian: 44 were Russian, 2 Indians, 8 Ukranians & 1 Uzbek. The crew consisted of a captain from Cyprus (who made the fatal decision to land instead of diverting, did he think he was invisible and will be able to land when many other planes decided to divert?!), co-pilot from Spain, air hostess from Colombia and the rest of the crew from the Seychelles. More accurate info is here: http://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/how-is-the-weather-sir-audio-of-final-cockpit-conversation-of-doomed-flydubai-738-jet-before-crash-in-poor-visibility/ar-BBqGnJX?li=AAaxjhv
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