Swiss military helicopter crashes in Alps

A Swiss military helicopter crashed on Wednesday at the Gotthard Pass over the Alps, the defence ministry said, adding it suspected people on board had been injured.Its Twitter message said rescue crews were on the scene but gave no other details. Swiss media identified the downed aircraft as an Airbus Super Puma.The Blick newspaper published a photo it said was sent in by a reader showing smoke billowing from flaming wreckage.The incident was the latest in a series of Swiss military crashes. A Swiss Air Force F/A 18 slammed into a mountainside this month moments after an air traffic controller assigned the pilot too low an altitude at which to fly. The pilot died.That crash was the third by an F/A 18 in the past three years. A Swiss F-5E air demonstration fighter jet collided with another plane and crashed into a pond in the northern Netherlands ahead of an air show in June.The European Aviation Safety Authority grounded some Super Puma helicopters in June following the discovery of metal fatigue in the gearbox of an H225 model that fatally crashed in Norway in late April.(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Catherine Evans)