Swiss bar owner told waitress to ‘get atmosphere going’ before inferno killed 40
The owners of the Swiss bar in which 40 people died in a New Year’s Eve fire have told how a waitress they viewed as a ‘stepdaughter’ suffocated ‘in a pile of bodies behind a locked door.’
Jacques and Jessica Moretti described waitress Cyane Panine’s last minutes alive during the horror of the evening.
Ms Panine had been encouraged by Ms Moretti, 40, to ‘get the atmosphere going’ at Le Constellation, in the Alpine ski resort of Crans-Montana, in the early hours of January 1.
This included getting waitresses to put sparklers in champagne bottles, before some were lifted up on the shoulders of waiters in the bar’s basement.
The flames from the sparklers are thought to have lit the soundproofing foam in the ceiling, triggering a massive fire, which killed 40 people and severely burned 116 others.
Mr Moretti, 49, eventually broke open the door to the basement from the outside and found Ms Panine dying, while surrounded by a ‘pile of bodies.’
Mr Moretti told the Vallais public prosecutor’s office in nearby Sion, that he only became aware after the fire that the bar’s ‘service door’ was ‘locked from the inside and on a latch.’
Meanwhile, Mrs Moretti is said to have driven herself home, after allegedly escaping as quickly as possible from the bar with the till containing the night’s cash earnings.
Mr Moretti is currently in custody, while his wife has been bailed with an electronic bracelet, as they await possible trial on a range of charges, including manslaughter and causing bodily harm by negligence.
He said that Ms Panine was the girlfriend of a close family friend whom the Morettis had ‘raised as if he were my own.’
Recalling how he found Cyane dying, he said: ‘I went out onto the patio [behind the bar]. All the windows were open.
‘There were a lot of people there. I tried to get inside but it was impossible. There was far too much smoke.’
Pointing to the ‘service door’ rather than an exit, Mr Moretti said it was ‘closed and locked from the inside with a latch, whereas it usually wasn’t.
‘We forced it open – it finally gave way in a few seconds. When the door opened, several people were lying on the floor, unconscious.
‘My stepdaughter Cyane was one of them. We pulled them all outside and put them in the recovery position.’
Cynae died within the hour.
Mr Moretti said he and Cyane’s boyfriend ‘tried to resuscitate her for more than an hour in the street near the bar, until the emergency services told us it was too late.’
On Friday, Mrs Moretti was interviewed separately and, according to records released to media outlets, told investigators: ‘Cyane was like a little sister to me.
‘She had spent Christmas with us. I was devastated.’
Mrs Moretti said she had arrived at the bar at 10.30pm on New Year’s Eve, while her husband remained at a restaurant they own nearby.
She said: ‘At midnight, there were very few people in the bar.
‘Then groups gradually arrived, bringing the number of customers present to just under a hundred.
‘I was just telling Cyane that we needed to bring more people to get the atmosphere going.’
Waitresses in face masks then perched on the shoulders of waiters, bringing ‘champagne sparklers’ to tables that had been hired for the equivalent of £900 each.
Mrs Moretti said: ‘Suddenly, I felt a surge of people. I saw orange light in the corner of the bar.
‘I immediately yelled: ‘Everyone out!’, and I immediately thought of calling the fire department.’
‘I left the establishment through the main entrance, taking the stairs, to tell the security guard to get everyone out. Once outside, I called 118 [the emergency number for the fire service in Switzerland]. It was 1.28am’.
She then called her husband, in a phone call that lasted 11 seconds, telling him there was a fire at the bar.
She told prosecutors: ‘When I got home, I was panicking, in a daze, my body was giving out on me.’
Mr Moretti confirmed that he told his wife to get into the car and go home to take care of their children – he said he ‘wanted to protect her.’
The couple has not yet commented on the claims of CCTV footage showing Mrs Moretti leaving with the cash register and that she could accordingly face further charges of ‘non-assistance to persons in danger.’
Both did speak of how they ‘renovated it [the bar] from A to Z’, including ‘the flooring, the furniture, and the bar itself’, including replacing the foam in the ceiling, when they first rented it in 2015.
Mr Moretti, who admitted there was no sprinkler system, or even fire extinguishers, said: ‘The fire service carried out two or three fire inspections in ten years of operation, without ever requiring any requests for renovations or modifications to the premises.’
Asked if employees such as Cyane were trained in fire safety, he replied: ‘No’.
He said the champagne sparklers were regularly used without incident, ‘for example, at birthday parties.’
The lit sparklers lasted ‘between 30 and 40 seconds’, and ‘we never let customers handle the sparklers.’
He added: ‘As soon as they go out, we take them and put them in a glass of water.’
Mr Moretti insisted he had previously carried out tests, and claimed the sparklers were not powerful enough to ignite the acoustic foam, so ‘something else must have been going on’.
Mrs Moretti added: ‘We always add a sparkler when we serve a bottle of wine in the dining room.’
She said the stunt, which placed the sparklers so close to the ceiling ‘wasn’t the first time but it wasn’t something we did systematically.
‘I never stopped them from doing it, but I never forced them either..’
Most of those who died were teenagers, including a French boy aged just 14, which has raised questions over the number of underage customers inside the venue.
Mr Moretti said the bar prohibited anyone under the age of 16, and required those between the ages of 16 and 18 to be accompanied by an adult.
He said he had given these orders to security staff, but admitted that ‘it’s possible that there was a lapse in protocol’.
The couple, who are both originally from the French island of Corsica, are suspected of ‘negligent manslaughter, causing bodily harm negligently, and negligent arson’.
They both deny any criminal or civil wrongdoing.
On Saturday, Cyane Panine’s funeral took place in her home town of Sète, in the South of France.
Her family and friends said they were convinced she could have been saved.
Astrid Panine, Cyane’s mother, said: ‘Cyane knew the place perfectly. She quickly headed for the emergency exit and could have saved herself and others. But it was locked.’
The investigation into the fire continues.