Eight die as private plane crashes into office building in Milan

A small, single-engine plane carrying six passengers and a crew of two has crashed into a vacant office building in a Milan suburb.

Italian authorities said all eight people aboard died.

Investigators opened a probe into what caused the private plane to crash shortly after take-off on Sunday from Milan’s Linate Airport en route to Olbia Airport on the Italian island of Sardinia.

A thick column of dark smoke rose from the crash site and was visible for miles. Several parked cars nearby went up in flames.

Milan prosecutor, Tiziana Siciliano, told reporters at the scene that the plane was proceeding on its flight until “a certain point, then an anomaly appeared on the radar screen and it plunged”, striking the building’s roof.

Control tower officials reported the anomaly, she said, but further details on that were not immediately given.

The prosecutor said the plane did not send out any alarm. It was too early to cite any possible cause for the crash, Siciliano said, adding that the flight recorder has been retrieved.

By early evening, only two of the eight dead had been identified, since they carried documents on them, Siciliano said.

Italian news reports said the pilot, 30, also had German citizenship. The second person identified was a Romanian woman in her 60s who also held French citizenship, the reports said.

The reports said the aircraft had flown from Bucharest, Romania, to Milan on September 30 with no apparent problem.

The Italian news agency, Ansa, quoted the national air safety agency ANSV as saying “the plane hit the building and started burning”. It said the aircraft was a PC-12, a single-engine, executive-type plane.

Fire officials said earlier that the aircraft had crashed into the building’s facade. But following further inspection, the prosecutor said it was apparent that the plane had struck the roof.

Firefighters extinguished the flames at the badly charred and gutted building, which reportedly was under renovation.