Crans-Montana: the absence of a crisis management strategy by the Swiss authorities
- Patrick Trancu
- Jan 17
- 5 min read
An analysis of the mistakes and the absence of a crisis management strategy on New Year’s Eve, explained by one of the leading crisis management experts. Interview with Patrick Trancu published by Weekend Il Corriere del Ticino on January 17th 2026.
On New Year’s Eve, Patrick Trancu was in Crans-Montana. He had driven by Le Constellation just moments before the tragedy. “There was a line at the entrance, young people waiting to get in to celebrate,” he recalls. “An apparently normal scene, one you see all the time.” At that moment, nothing suggested what was about to happen.
“It was the following morning that those details took on a different meaning,” he explains. “Thinking back, I began mentally reconstructing the sequence: the waiting, the difficult access, that vague feeling that something wasn’t working as it should.” It is from this temporal and physical proximity to the event—more than from analytical distance—that his interpretation of what happened takes shape.
A consultant with over twenty years of experience in crisis management and communication, and founder of TT&A Advisors, Trancu has worked on some of the most serious events of recent decades, from the 2001 Linate air disaster to complex industrial and institutional emergencies. In Crans-Montana, however, professional analysis collided with an immediate personal dimension. “You’re not observing a tragedy from afar,” he says. “You’re there, as it happens.”
“I have a daughter who is the same age as those kids”
What makes this contrast even starker is something Trancu does not shy away from. “I have a daughter who is more or less the same age as those kids,” he explains. “And when you realize that the tragedy stops being abstract. It doesn’t become emotional in a rhetorical sense, but more demanding: it forces you to ask very concrete questions about how the system works.”
“The element that struck everyone, including myself, was the initial shock,” he continues. “The idea that an event of this kind could happen in Switzerland was simply unimaginable.” According to Trancu, this cultural assumption produced a true cognitive paralysis. “It’s the classic ‘this can’t happen here’ mechanism. It affects public perception, but it also affects the first institutional reactions, because it delays recognition of the real scale of the event and its consequences.”
From an operational standpoint, his assessment remains clear. “The emergency response worked, and it worked well. Rescue operations were rapid; the injured were taken in and distributed among numerous Swiss and European hospitals with great efficiency.” But this is precisely where the core issue emerges: “The problem is not the emergency. The problem is what happens when the emergency turns into a crisis, as it did in Crans.”
“When Linate* happened, the world was not like this”
It is a subtle but decisive boundary that Trancu had already observed at Linate*. “Back then we were in a different media era. Social media didn’t exist, the news cycle was slower, the world was not polarized. Today, complexity is infinitely greater.” Yet beyond the differences, he identifies a common point: “In both cases, institutions were not prepared to manage a crisis of this magnitude.”
According to Trancu, one of the main mistakes in Crans-Montana was the failure to immediately recognize the systemic nature of the event and its human dimension. “It was not a local tragedy. From the very first hours, it was a national crisis with international implications.” In such situations, he explains, the sum of existing competencies is not enough. “You need clear direction, a true federal-level crisis unit capable of rapidly coordinating operations, communication, support for families, and reputational management. And it is essential to focus immediately on the people affected, with a long-term perspective. That is where action must begin.”
Instead, he notes, institutional fragmentation prevailed. “Cantons, the municipality, the prosecutor’s office, the Confederation—each acted within its own formal perimeter.” A rigidity that, from a crisis management and communication perspective, is problematic. “The result was a vacuum of collective action and narrative, and the inability to impose clear, strong messages—especially in the first 72 hours, which are crucial in managing this type of crisis. And when an authoritative, coherent voice is missing, that space is inevitably filled by leaks, rumors, and partial or contradictory information.”
“The communication crisis”
Communication, Trancu insists, is not an accessory element. “It is an operational tool that accompanies action. It is needed to maintain the relationship of trust between institutions and the public.” In Crans-Montana, this relationship fractured very early on. Among the critical issues, he cites the absence, at the first press conference of key technical figures such as the fire chief. “He could have clarified fundamental technical aspects from the outset, reducing initial confusion and curbing the spread of speculation.”
The handling of information about missing persons and victims was also one of the most delicate phases. “There are objective legal and operational difficulties in identifying people. But waiting without information is devastating for families. That information vacuum is one of the most painful moments of all, and it is there that much of the trust in institutions is decided.”
This context also includes a political-communication dimension. “The press conference by the mayor of Crans-Montana, Nicolas Feroud, represented a crucial moment,” Trancu observes. “Not so much for what could be said on a technical level, but for what should have been communicated on a human and leadership level.” The decision to rule out resignation, invoking the image of the captain who stays at the helm during the storm, is not in itself the central issue. “The point is not whether to resign or not. The point is how responsibility is exercised in a crisis.”
“Understanding and taking responsibility for the gravity”
In situations like this, he explains, responsibility is not symbolic. “There needs to be a clear stance that tells the community: I understand the gravity of what has happened, and I take responsibility for it—concretely.” In the absence of this step, the risk is that communication becomes defensive or an end in itself. “And when communication is ineffective, the crisis stops being managed and starts being endured.”
The comparison with Linate also returns when it comes to assistance for victims. “After Linate, the SAS took care of all the families, without distinction, for a long period of time.” In Crans-Montana, by contrast, Trancu observes a lack of structured vision. “No one said, ‘We will take care of you for as long as necessary.’ Today we see families forced to rely on online petitions, spontaneous fundraising, fragmented initiatives. A dramatic and surprising context for Switzerland, in which the institutions of the Confederation appear to be absent.” This contrasts with the words of the Italian Foreign Minister, who announced in the Senate a few days ago that Italy will guarantee all possible care to the injured, remaining by their side and not abandoning them.
“It is also an ethical issue”
For the expert, the issue is ethical even before it is organizational. “It is a moral responsibility of the state to take care of all victims in an equitable and coordinated way. It cannot be left to chance or to individuals’ ability to mobilize attention.”
The crisis, he warns, is also reputational. “Thinking that it is enough to wait for the outcome of judicial proceedings is a strategic mistake.” In crises, one must act immediately with a sense of urgency, show empathy, and indicate a clear, shared direction. “Even seemingly small actions—immediate checks, working groups, preventive decisions—communicate that someone is governing the situation.”
Finally, there is a personal dimension that Trancu does not hide. “When I thought that in a few years my daughter might find herself in a venue like that, everything took on a different weight.” Events of this magnitude, he concludes, mark a generation, a country, and a place. Like Linate, which remains a wound but also a turning point. “The difference lies in what you learn and do afterward—but only if you have the courage to acknowledge mistakes, without silence and without defensiveness.”
*8 October 2001. Italy’s worst civil aviation disaster that claimed the lives of 118 people. Patrick Trancu managed crisis communications for SAS Scandinavian Airlines.
