Majority of 40 Swiss bar fire victims died after renovated staircase 'collapsed' as they tried to escape
The stairwell had been narrowed by two-thirds by the owner after renovations, the investigation found
The majority the 40 victims who died in a Swiss bar fire on New Year's Eve were trapped in the burning building after a renovated staircase collapsed.
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Investigators have now established that 34 of those who died in the fire at Le Constellation, in the ski resort of Crans Montana, were trapped after a cramped staircase collapsed.
The staircase, leading up to the door from the basement bar, fell apart as people rushed to escape the blaze.
The stairwell had been narrowed by two-thirds by the owner after renovations, the investigation found.
Swiss police found numerous bodies at the bottom of the stairs after the wooden steps and handrails detached from the wall and collapsed.
One of those emergency exits, which would have provided a potential escape route, was reportedly located within the basement.
But Andrea, 31, a regular at Le Constellation who works as a bartender elsewhere in the resort, claimed the doors were always locked.
Read More: Owner of Swiss bar where 40 people were killed in deadly New Year's Eve fire arrested
The blaze began at around 1.30am local time while guests - mainly teenagers and young people - were celebrating the start of 2026.
The fire spread quickly, prompting people to storm a staircase towards an exit. Witnesses also reported people screaming, climbing over each other and smashing windows in desperate bid to escape the crowded bar.
Jacques Moretti, co-owner of Le Constellation bar, admitted to reducing the width of the stairwell from three metres to just one metre.
He carried out the renovations himself when he took over management of the Constellation in 2015, and questions on whether he had planning permission remain.
This comes as Moretti has been arrested and detained due to a potential risk of flight, according to Swiss newspaper 24 Heures.
Moretti and his wife and fellow co-owner Jessica attended a hearing at the Office of the public prosecutor of the Canton of Valais in Sion on January 9.
The French couple, face charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.
It recently emerged the bar in the Alpine ski resort had not undergone safety checks for five years.
The fire, believed to have been started by "flares" placed on top of champagne bottles held too close to the ceiling, spread across the venue in the early hours of January 1.
Regional authorities have said that safety inspections were the responsibility of the municipality.
On Tuesday, the head of Crans-Montana's municipal government, Nicolas Feraud, said there had been inspections of Le Constellation up to 2019.
But he told a news conference the local council discovered after consulting documents after the fire that "periodic checks were not carried out between 2020 and 2025".
"We regret this bitterly," he said, adding that it will be up to judicial authorities to determine what influence that may have had on the chain of events that led to the fire.
Mr Feraud said he could not immediately explain why safety inspections had not been conducted for such a long time.
He said that, in September last year, an external expert had been asked to carry out a soundproofing analysis and had concluded that the bar complied with anti-noise rules, without making further remarks.
"What happened is not a disaster: It's the result of too many people who didn't do their job or who thought they were making easy money," Italian premier Giorgia Meloni said during a press conference on Friday.
"Those responsible must be identified and prosecuted."