Milan: Eight dead in a small plane crash

A small plane crashes in Milan just moments after take-off and into an office building. All eight inmates die – including a child.

Milan – All eight occupants were killed in a plane crash on the outskirts of Milan. A single-engine charter plane crashed into an empty office building on Sunday for an initially unexplained cause shortly after take-off at Linate Airport.

According to initial information from the fire brigade, the pilot, another crew member and six passengers died. The victims all came from abroad, including a child, as prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano announced at the scene of the accident.

The building in San Donato Milanese on the outskirts of the northern Italian metropolis caught fire after the violent impact – but there were no people in the offices due to renovation work.

The Pilatus PC-12 private plane took off at 1:04 p.m. from Linate, the second largest airport in Milan, to fly to Olbia in Sardinia. It then crashed just minutes after taking off. That comes from the data of the Internet service Flightradar24. Accordingly, after the take-off phase and an initial loop, the aircraft suddenly lost altitude and crashed to the ground just seconds later.

The reason for the crash was initially unclear. Eyewitnesses reported that an engine of the machine had burned and the aircraft then fell to the ground in a dive without any maneuvers being apparent. “The impact was devastating,” said Carlo Cardinali of the Milan Fire Brigade, according to the Ansa news agency. The teams found the flight recorder for further analysis.

The plane crashed near Via 8 Ottobre 2001, which is reminiscent of another accident almost exactly 20 years ago. At that time, a Scandinavian Airlines passenger plane collided with a small Cessna at Linate Airport in thick fog; all 114 people on board the two aircraft died. That was the biggest aviation accident in Italy. dpa