The owners of the Swiss nightclub which erupted into an inferno killing at least 47 people and injuring 115 others are a husband and wife French couple who are known as powerful figures in the Swiss hospitality industry, we can reveal.
The blast occurred at around 1.30am local time (12.30am GMT) in the basement of ‘Le Constellation’, a popular venue located in the centre of the Alpine town of Crans-Montana.
Flames quickly spread across the club, consuming it in a raging fire that killed dozens.
Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica, 40, who are from the French island of Corsica, are now facing a raft of questions over how the deadly blaze spread so quickly in their basement venue and turned it into a deathtrap.
Mrs Moretti’s Facebook page reveals that she has links to the UK as she once studied at the University of Glamorgan in Wales, as well as the International University of Monaco, and the Montpelier Business School in France.
The couple who have a young son opened their bar called Le Constellation in the upmarket ski resort of Crans-Montana in December 2015 after falling in love with the area when they visited for a week’s holiday in 2011.
The bar with an upstairs terrace and a basement club, featuring DJs and live music, became one of the most popular nightspots in the town with a clientele of mainly young and affluent winter sports fans and locals.
According to the Crans-Montana website, the bar offered an ‘elegant space’ and a ‘festive atmosphere’ with online descriptions of it being the ‘place to be’ and popular with an international crowd.
It’s understood that it is also one of few bars in the ski resort that allows revellers who are 16 and over inside rather than having to be 18.
The bar’s success enabled Mr and Mrs Moretti to open up two other restaurants in the area, earning themselves a reputation as a hardworking and successful husband and wife team.
But fire investigators probing the cause of the tragedy are now said to be investigating whether the basement which had just one relatively-narrow staircase was effectively ‘a disaster waiting to happen’.
Many of those who died are believed to have been overcome in the crush to get to the single exit as the blaze rapidly took hold in the enclosed space which was packed with New Year’s Eve revellers.
Investigators will also be looking at whether the wooden furnishings inside the basement, the wooden panelling on some of the walls, and the reported foam-style insulation material on the ceiling contributed to the spread of the fire.
Witness have told how the blaze was apparently sparked by a waitress holding a sparkler in a bottle, causing material on the ceiling to ignite before flames rapidly spread as panic-stricken revellers struggled to escape.
The authorities have said the fire had resulted in a ‘flashover’, leading to one or more explosions, causing all flammable surfaces in a room to potentially ignite instantly.
Questions will inevitably be asked about how appropriate it was for the venue to use sparklers as props to make a theatrical show of serving drinks.
Reports have also pointed to the club receiving a safety score of just 6.5 out of ten on listings website Wheree, although it is unclear how the rating was calculated from reviews of the business.
Mrs Moretti was inside the club when the fire took hold and was said to have suffered burns to her arm while her husband was working at one of their other establishments. The couple are said to be ‘completely in shock’, according to sources.
It also emerged that social media pages for the club on Instagram and Facebook had been deleted early today, even while victims of the blaze were still being pulled out of the wreckage of the club.
Mr Moretti told how he opened Le Constellation which was in a previously abandoned building after doing much of the building work himself over nearly six months.
He and his wife first visited Crans-Montana in 2011, after he ‘heard about it from Swiss clients’, according to a local newspaper Le Nouvelliste. The article told how the couple fell in love with the resort and decided to build a business there.
It added that they found Le Constellation in the centre of Crans up for sale and signed an agreement to take it over in June 2015.
They worked ‘relentlessly’ to prepare the club for opening, having to effectively to completely refit the bar as it had previously been ‘left exactly as it was’.
Describing his efforts to open the club, Mr Moretti told the newspaper: ‘I did almost everything myself. Look at these walls, there are 14 tons of dry stone, it comes from Saint-Léonard!’
He told how his bar served as ‘a showcase for Corsican products’, selling cured meats, wines, beers, myrtle liqueur, and even chestnut-flavoured whisky from the island, along with more local Swiss products.
Mr Moretti admitted to ‘feeling very much at home here’ in the Swiss resort, telling his local interviewer: ‘You know, we’re the same. We’re mountain people first and foremost. Stubborn, but above all, very kind.’
Another article in French-language Altitude magazine last year described Mr and Mrs Moretti as ‘brimming with energy’ and added: ‘Their slightly sing-song accent betrays their Corsican origins’.
The success of Le Constellation under the couple’s stewardship led to them opening a gourmet burger restaurant in Crans-Montana, called Senso in 2020, and a Corsican-style inn called Vieux Chalet in the nearby village of Lens in 2023.
This led to the couple drawing up plans to set up a Corsican festival in Lens, bringing in Corsican singers to perform concerts in a church and on an outdoor stage in the evening.
While Mr Moretti does not appear to have a visible social media presence, his wife has pages on Instagram as well as Facebook and a LinkedIn account which describes her as Propriétaire, or owner of their three businesses.
Tragic reports have now emerged of mothers calling all the hospitals in the area in the hope of finding their children – as well as parents taking it upon themselves to search the resort itself.
One man, eighteen-year-old Rayan Guiren, said: ‘Many parents have been searching for their children.’
Alexis, an eighteen-year-old who was outside the club when he first spotted the flames, told local media that people inside tried desperately to break the glass.
He said: ‘It was a real flame coming out. It was coming out and… in fact, people were running through these flames.
‘You could see the shadows. People were trying to break the glass with chairs in the bar.’
Another 18-year-old revealed: ‘I thought my little brother was inside so I came and tried to break the window to help people to exit, and after that I went in.’
He said he was close to the bar when he heard a huge explosion and as others tried to escape, he went inside looking for his brother.
Speaking to the BBC, he recalled: ‘I saw people burning… I found people burning from head to foot, no clothes anymore… It was very shocking. I went in this bar every day this week – the day I didn’t go, it burned.’ His brother was fortunately unharmed.
As firefighters took over, the teenager heroically continued to help, offering water and clothes to the victims.
One mother told how she had been desperately calling all the hospitals to find her missing 16-year-old son Giovanni – but added she had so far been unable to locate him.
Another witness, 21-year-old Alex, said he was just outside when the first victims of the tragedy began rushing out: ‘I saw someone in their underwear, burned. That’s when I realised there was definitely something wrong.’
He recalled a ‘smell of gas, of melted plastic, a very unpleasant mixture. And then half a dozen burned people came out.’
Alex added: ‘It sent a chill down my spine to think that there were possibly still fifty people trapped inside’.
Another person told Sky News that many people were so panicked that they did not even realise their own faces were severely burned.
Oscar, 19, told the broadcaster that some people’s faces were ‘completely gone’.
He said: ‘There was full panic. Many people tried running out. People were banging on the windows, screaming. It was like a horror movie.
‘I think the windows were too thick. Then people were falling on each other coming out.
‘Some people’s faces fully burned, like completely gone. People were asking me: “Am I burned? Is my face burned?”
‘I think the adrenaline must have made them not feel anything because they were completely, fully burned and they didn’t feel anything.’
Two French women, Emma and Albane, told French media that they were in the club when the fire broke out, which they believe started after a waitress put ‘birthday candles’ on top of some champagne bottles.
They said: ‘In a matter of seconds, the entire ceiling was ablaze. Everything was made of wood.’
The pair added that the flames ‘started to rise very quickly’.
They said evacuating from the venue was ‘very difficult’ as the escape route was ‘narrow’ and the stairs leading outside were ‘even narrower’.
The women added they were ‘very lucky’ to escape as there were around ‘200 people trying to get out within 30 seconds through some very narrow steps’.
Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference that work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families, adding that the community is ‘devastated’.
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
‘At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,’ Pilloud said.
Dramatic footage shows enormous flames rapidly spreading over the ceiling of the cramped bar, as heavy music blares out of the speakers.
Panicked partygoers can be seen rushing to escape the venue, while others seem to remain underground filming the blaze, evidently not yet realising its danger.
Moments later, however, music turned to horrified screeches as the entire bar erupted in flames.
Crowds of people can be seen piling out of the door as they run for their lives while others scream to find their friends amid the chaos.
Police have not yet disclosed the cause of the fire, but several witnesses said it started when a waitress, dancing on a male colleague’s shoulders, held a sparkler too close to the wooden ceiling.
A promotional video for the club shows waitresses passing around champagne bottles fitted with sparklers, and carrying buckets full of several bottles also with sparklers inside.
