Crossair Flight 3597 was a scheduled flight from Berlin Tegel Airport, Germany, to Zurich Airport, Switzerland. On 24 November 2001, the Crossair Avro RJ100 operating the route, registered as crashed into a wooded range of hills near Bassersdorf and caught fire. Out of the 33 occupants, nine people survived.
Aircraft
The accident aircraft, an Avro 146-RJ100, with registration HB-IXM, was manufactured in 1996, and had logged more than 13,000 flying hours in 11,500 cycles at the time of the crash. The aircraft was powered by four Lycoming LF507-1F turbofan engines.
! scope="col"|Passengers<br>(dead)
! scope="col" |Crew<br>(dead)
! scope="col" |Total<br>(dead)
|-
|align=left|Canada||1||0||1
|-
|align=left|Germany||10||0||10
|-
|align=left|Ghana||1||0||1
|-
|align=left|Israel||3||0||3
|-
|align=left|Netherlands||1||0||1
|-
| align="left" |Spain
|1
|0
|1
|-
| align="left" |Sweden|||1||0||1
|-
|align=left|Switzerland||2||3||5
|-
|align=left|United States|||1||0||1
|-class=sortbottom
!Total (dead)!!21!!3!!24
|}
Flight 3597 was carrying a total of 33 occupants; 5 crew members and 28 passengers were on board.
Among the 24 people that lost their lives in the accident were Melanie Thornton, the former lead singer of the German Eurodance duo La Bouche, and singers Nathaly van het Ende and Maria Serrano Serrano of the German-Dutch Eurodance trio Passion Fruit; the group's third singer, Debby St. Maarten, and manager were among the nine people that survived.
Swiss businesswoman and politician Jacqueline Badran and her colleague Peter Hoegenkamp were among the survivors of the crash.
Investigation
thumb|right|The site of the crash
thumb|right|Memorial for those killed
While Captain Lutz was an experienced pilot, his competence soon came under close scrutiny by investigators from the Swiss Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB). The AAIB would conclude that the accident was a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) caused by a series of pilot errors and navigation mistakes that led the plane off-course. This course deviation caused the plane to crash into a hilltop, short of and north of its assigned landing strip, runway 28. as well as Lutz's request that Löhrer call out the height when the plane reached 100 feet above DA (decision altitude – the altitude at which an immediate decision to land or initiate a missed approach must be made). However, Flight 3597 was behind schedule and would not reach Zurich until after 22:00 CET, necessitating a change to its landing plan. Zurich ATC, in order to comply with a new Swiss law designed to reduce airport noise from approaching aircraft over southern Germany in the late evening hours, redirected all flights on final approach to switch from the ILS-equipped runway 14 to the less-accurate VOR/DME-equipped runway 28. This runway change forced Lutz to abandon his planned ILS approach and required Löhrer to consult the Jeppesen charts for runway 28. The charts included a new set of approach parameters, of which the higher minimum descent altitude (MDA) was the most crucial piece of information.
The MDA states the minimum altitude in MSL to safely fly above any obstructions or terrain in the final approach flight-path before visual contact with the runway is made. Unlike a DA in a precision approach, an MDA requires that after crossing the Final Approach Fix, the pilot should descend and maintain MDA until the pilot reports that the runway is in sight, allowing the landing to safely be completed visually. In contrast to the ILS approach, which displays lateral and vertical position, the VOR/DME approach only shows the lateral position of the aircraft and its range to the runway. Due to increased azimuth error associated with the use of VORs and lack of vertical guidance (glide slope), the MDA is therefore often higher than a DA (Decision Altitude) for an ILS.
Although both pilots were based in Zurich
Dramatization
The hourlong Discovery Channel Canada / National Geographic TV series Mayday featured the crash in a Season 10 episode titled Cockpit Failure in 2011 and featured an interview of Peter Hoegenkamp, one of the survivors of the crash.