- MILAN, Italy (CNN) - Friends and colleagues of the pilot
whose aircraft crashed into a Milan high-rise have dismissed speculation
that he deliberately flew his small plane into the building.
Prosecutors investigating Thursday's crash have offered three possible
explanations for the cause: a technical problem with Luigi Gino Fasulo's
Rockwell Commander 112TC; illness; or suicide.
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- Fasulo's plane crashed into the 26th floor of Milan's
32-story Pirelli Tower, killing him and two women -- Anna Maria Rapetti,
41, and Alessandra Santonocito, 42, both lawyers. Eleven of the 36 injured
inside and outside the building remained hospitalized Friday.
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- Crash chronology
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- Italian authorities detailed the events leading up to
Thursday's crash.
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- 5:39 p.m.: Fasulo asks the control tower at Linate airport
for permission to land.
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- 5:42 p.m.: Fasulo tells the tower he's having problems
with his landing gear; the tower asks him to circle over a nearby private
airport.
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- 5:43 p.m.: Fasulo tells the tower that he is trying to
manually lower the plane's landing gear.
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- 5:44 p.m.: The tower gets no response when it tries to
contact Fasulo.
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- 5:47 or 5:48 p.m.: The aircraft hits the Pirelli building.
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- The building, which houses the Lombardy regional government,
remained closed Friday, and surrounding hotels were still evacuated. But
engineers said there is no risk the building will collapse.
A news report citing Fasulo's son, Marco, fueled speculation that the crash
was an act of suicide, and not an accident. (Full story)
Rome's La Repubblica newspaper quote Marco Fasulo as saying the crash may
have been a deliberate act induced by despair over financial problems --
reports that Milan police claim Marco Fasulo has since denied making.
"It was a suicide, a suicide, do you understand?" he was quoted
as saying.
Fasulo's wife, Filomena, told CNN she plans to sue the newspaper over the
report. Meanwhile, Fasulo's nephew, Luigi Fasulo, told Italian state television
that the crash was an accident.
"Surely there was no intention on the part of my uncle to crash into
the building," he said. "He was a person who loved life."
Fasulo, 68, from Pregassona, Switzerland, had been flying for over 30 years,
held a commercial pilot's license and owned the plane.
Under Swiss law every pilot over the age of 50 has to undergo annual health
check-ups. Fasulo passed his last medical in October with no problems.
Workers at Magadino Airport, the tiny airport in Locarno, Switzerland,
where he kept his plane said he showed no sign of unhappiness.
Pino Scossa, a fellow pilot and Fasulo's friend of 40 years, told Reuters:
"I saw him yesterday before he took off and he seemed very normal
to me. The idea that he committed suicide seems absurd to me."
Pietro Marci, former head of the local flight club, added: "We're
surrounded by mountains here. If he wanted to kill himself he could have
flown into one of them."
Italian Transport Minister Pietro Lunardi, who has ordered a probe into
the pilot's health, family situation and finances, told the Senate that
Fasulo could have fallen ill at the controls. (Questions remain)
After making initial radio contact with the control tower, "there
was silence, he was not operating any of the plane's controls in the last
two minutes," he said.
Lunardi told reporters: "There's every reason to thing there was something
strange -- the kind of target and the way it was hit straight on is spooky."
An Italian law enforcement official told CNN that authorities had no evidence
of any link to terrorism.
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- The National Aviation Authority said Fasulo radioed the
control tower at Milan's Linate Airport to report "a small problem"
with his landing gear as he was approaching the airport tarmac to land.
The tower tried to put him into a holding pattern to the west of the tarmac,
but the pilot turned north instead, the authority said.
When the tower contacted the pilot again to inform him he was making "improper
maneuvers," he told officials he was trying to fix the problem with
the landing gear so he could land, and that was the last time the tower
was able to reach him.
Milan fire brigade officials have said the plane was on fire as it flew
into the Pirelli building.
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