Swiss Police Warn of Probable Additional Wreckage Discoveries

The summer of 2022 will be remembered by climatologists as one of Europe’s hottest. Between June and August, temperatures of 40–43 °C (104–109 °F) were recorded in parts of Europe, with the summer’s highest temperature of 47.0 °C (116.6 °F) being recorded on 14 July in Pinhão, Portugal. In all, over 12,000 lives were lost to heat-stroke and heat-related maladies in the deadliest atmospheric event since the Russian heatwave of 2010.

Extreme heat saw glaciers throughout the Pyrenees, Pennie, Apennine, and Carpathian mountains melt to extents unprecedented in modern times. In the Swiss Alps, glacial melting revealed the wreckage of a plane gone missing over fifty-years ago.

Remnants of a Piper Cherokee were discovered on the Aletsch glacier in Switzerland’s Wallis canton, near the Jungfrau and Monch mountain peaks. The wreckage was happened upon by a mountain guide Dominik Nellen, who was in the area only because local hiking routes had been changed to account for melting snow and ice. Mr. Nellen stated in a subsequent interview: “From afar, I thought I was looking at two backpacks.

The aircraft, registration HB-OYL, was lost in 1968. Swiss police have disclosed that the bodies of a chief medical officer, his son, and a teacher were recovered from the wreckage. Two additional skeletons were discovered in the vicinity of the downed aircraft, but their connection—if any—to the Cherokee and its occupants is unknown.

The bodies were removed expediently from the glacier. The wreckage will be retrieved at the conclusion of the requisite investigations.

Cognizant of ongoing glacial melt, Swiss authorities warn that aircraft wreckage discovered by mountaineers should not be approached or handled. The police chief of the jurisdiction in which HB-OYL was found stated: “We ask that you mark the wreckage and report it to the nearest police station, but do not touch it as there is a risk of injury.”

Asked why the wreckage and decedents weren’t found 54-years ago, Swiss police added: “At the time of the accident, more than 50 years ago, the technical means to recover aircraft wreckage in difficult terrain were limited.”

Little is known of the accident or its victims. European aviation and law-enforcement records state only that PA-28-140 HB-OYL and its three occupants departed Zürich-Kloten International Airport (ZRH) on 30 June 1968, and that it crashed under unknown circumstances on the Aletsch glacier.

FMI: www.easa.europa.eu