A tourist plane crashed in a wooded, mountainous area of western Switzerland on Saturday, killing the three people onboard, police said. The small tourist plane crashed in a steep and forested area near Ponts-De-Martel in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel at about 10.20am (0820 GMT), regional police said. “The pilot and the two passengers died on site,” the Neuchâtel police said in a statement, without providing further details about the victims. The plane was registered in Switzerland and had taken off from the nearby Chaux-de-Fonds airport for a sightseeing flight. A large rescue and recovery operation had been launched, police said, adding that the crash site in the Neuchâtel mountains was in very steep terrain, complicating the work. The cause of the crash remains unclear, the statement said, adding that authorities had launched an investigation to determine the circumstances.