Melbourne, January 8
The plane crashed while taking off from an Australian tourist island, killing three people, including Swiss and Danish tourists, and injuring three others. Only one of the seven people on board escaped unhurt in the crash on Rottnest Island on Tuesday afternoon, police said. The plane, owned by Swan River Seaplane, was returning to its base in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, 30 kilometers east of Rottnest Island.
West Australian Premier Roger Cook said the dead included a 65-year-old Swiss woman, a 60-year-old man from Denmark and a 34-year-old male pilot from Perth.
Western Australian Police Commissioner Colonel Blanche said that none of the injured persons have suffered life-threatening injuries. All three injured were taken to a Perth hospital. Cook said that the cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained. Cook said reports that the plane hit a rock at the entrance to a bay on the west side of the island could not be confirmed from video seen so far.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau aviation crash investigators said special investigators were being sent to the scene. “We were watching the plane take off and just as it was starting to land on the water, it crashed,” Quinn, a tourist at the scene, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio in Perth. –Ap
