Former executives of Swissair and leading lights in Switzerland's financial establishment will go on trial for their role in the spectacular collapse of an airline that was once a watchword for excellence.

After plying the world's skies for 70 years, Swissair, a symbol of the country's legendary efficiency, was unexpectedly grounded on October 2, 2001 when the carrier was unable to pay its fuel bills.

Hundreds of passengers and aircrew were stranded around the world until emergency bridging loans and government guarantees helped the private company resume flights.

Some pilots nonetheless had to pay cash for jet fuel at foreign airports. The airline was eventually stripped of its assets and slid into bankruptcy within six months.

The 19 Swissair ex-managers or board members due to appear in the dock near Zurich until March include a former chief executive of the bank Credit Suisse, Lukas Muehlemann; Benedict Hentsch, the ex-head of the eponymous Swiss private bank; industrialist Thomas Schmidheiny and former Swissair chief executive Philippe Bruggisser.

The affair was even turned into a movie, "Grounding", that became a box office hit in Switzerland last year. The film was credited with reviving the fortunes of the country's cottage film industry with its portrayal of some top name Swiss financiers as alternatively sharkish or incompetent.

Swiss business law professor Walter Stoffel said the judge faced the tricky task of applying appropriate judicial redress without stifling the entrepreneurial spirit needed in a free market.

"If the court stigmatises the undertaking of entrepreneurial risk, it would be disastrous for our business and economy," Stoffel told the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. "Personal failure is not a criminal offence."

The Zurich cantonal prosecutor's 100-page charge sheet includes accusations of false accounting and unlawful management against some of the defendants, focusing mainly on attempts to restructure the parent company in 2001.

At the time Swissair Group had racked up some 17 billion Swiss francs (11 billion euros) in debt, including an excess of 2.3 billion Swiss francs on the airline business alone, which is at the centre of the prosecutor's case.

In the years running up to the collapse, Swissair had appeared to be bursting with ambition as management embarked on what was dubbed a "hunter strategy", buying or taking substantial minority stakes in smaller carriers after struggling to conclude tie-ups with major airlines like KLM in the Netherlands or US carrier Delta.

Belgium's Sabena; French airlines AOM, Air Liberte and Air Littoral; Austrian Airlines; Volare; the German charter company LTU; Air Europe; Poland's LOT; TAP Air Portugal and Turkish Airlines came under Swissair's wing to varying degrees.

Some of them were also dragged under after the Swiss company's financial troubles started to emerge. Bruggisser was forced to resign in January 2001, well before the carrier was grounded, when part of his strategy was disavowed by the board.

Bruggisser, who only last year was seeking a place on the board of South African Airways, will precede his successor, Mario Corti, in the village hall in the small town of Buelach, on the outskirts of Zurich, where the trial is to take place.

Corti, a respected former Nestle executive, negotiated a 12-million-Swiss-franc fee for five years to try to turn the airline group around in 2001, when it was already making huge losses and was riddled with debt.

In the event Corti stayed in the post for less than two years.

Other key defendants include ex-LOT chief executive Jan Litwinski and executives who handled Swissair's finances in 2001.

Legal expert Daniel Jositsch said the case was unlikely to produce any prison sentences.

"No one will end up behind bars," the Zurich law professor said.

"Bad business administration is not punishable, and you'll need to prove that there were shortcomings in due diligence."

Swissair's aircraft and staff were merged with regional airline Crossair in 2002 under a 4.5-billion-Swiss-franc national salvage plan footed by the Swiss taxpayer and major banks.

The end product, Swiss International Airlines, was taken over by Germany's Lufthansa in 2005, after successive restructurings.