Twenty killed in Swiss Alps plane crash

All 20 people on board a vintage plane have been killed after it crashed into a mountainside in Switzerland

Piz Segnas and the Atlas in Flims, Switzerland

Twenty people have been killed after a small plane crashed in the Swiss Alps. (AAP)

A vintage plane's crash in Switzerland has killed all 20 people on board, Grisons cantonal police say.

The plane crashed in a basin at 2,450 metres above sea level on the west side of the Piz Segnas mountain on Saturday afternoon.

Among those killed were 17 people from Switzerland and a three-person family from Austria, police said.

Daniel Knecht of the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board said the plane appears to have hit the ground near-vertically and at high speed.

Speaking at a news conference on Sunday in the Alpine resort of Flims, near the crash site, Knecht said the vintage plane presumably didn't have the crash-resistant cockpit voice and data recorders that more modern aircraft have.

He said officials have ruled out a collision with another aircraft or hitting an obstacle such as a wire.

Knecht also says there's no indication of foul play or that the aircraft lost parts or broke up before the crash.

Swiss officials said they were not aware of any distress call from the plane and expect the investigation into crash to be "relatively complex".

The news comes after a another plane crashed near the Swiss town of Hergiswil on Saturday, killing four people.

Police later confirmed that a family of four were killed.


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Source: AAP


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