Plane Crashes Into Italian Skyscraper

Government authorities said Thursday there was no evidence that a small aircraft that flew into Italy's tallest skyscraper was an act of terrorism.

The two-seat plane hit between the 24th and 25th floors of the 32-story building just at the end of the business day, after circling the city at least once and reporting trouble with its undercarriage.

At least four people, including the pilot, were reported killed, with dozens injured.

"The initial information that the Interior Ministry has leads us to lean toward an accident," Interior Minister Claudio Scajola said.

A spokesman for the senate president, Marcello Pera, said Scajola had informed him that the crash didn't appear to be a terror attack. Earlier, Pera had said it "very probably" was an attack.

"We believe it isn't a terrorist attack," said Milan police Sgt. Vincenzo Curto. "The pilot might have taken ill, or it was an engine problem."

The pilot of the Rockwell Commander was identified as 68- or 75-year-old Luigi Sasulo of Pregassona, Switzerland, who was well known to people at Locarno Airport.

He had sent out a distress call at 5:54 p.m. just before the crash, said Milan police official Celerissimo De Simone. Sasulo was reported en route from Switzerland on a 20-minute flight to Milan.

"We will not have a definitive answer for some time, but early indications are that the accident was a result of pilot error and not in any way related to an act of terror," an official with the Italian parliament told United Press International. "Early evidence shows no evidence of any plot behind the accident."

Earlier, parliamentary and ministerial-level government leaders echoed that statement and urged calm. Interior Minister Claudio Scajola said the chances that the crash was part of a terror plan were "extremely" thin.

Despite that, Italian television reported that the Ministry of Defense activated its National Airspace Defense as a precautionary measure, a move that puts the Italian Air Force on high alert but does not mean that flights are being grounded. The parliamentary official said that a special government task force was being formed to look into the incident.

The plane crashed into the central Milan building, known as the Pirelli Tower, at 5:45 p.m. (11:45 a.m. EDT), when most workers were filing out of area offices to head home. Authorities said the hour and the fact that the top three floors of the structure were closed for renovation work helped limit casualties.

"It was shocking," Luccheta Antonio, 52, a barber down the block, told Reuters. "The windows shook and the mirrors."

"It was a violent explosion," said Stefano Bottazzi, 35, who works in a skyscraper 500 yards from building. "The clock fell to the floor."

Television images show that four floors, the 23rd to the 26th, were damaged. The Italian news agency ANSA reported that 1,200 people worked in the building, built in 1958.

The image immediately called to mind the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Police authorities immediately speculated that the Milan crash might also be a terrorist attack.

More than 30 arrests over the last six months in Milan, believed by investigators to be a European center for the al-Qaeda terror network, fueled initial speculation that the accident was a terror attack.

But authorities later said it became increasingly clear that the crash was an accident.

"Early statements were speculation before there were facts," said a police official speaking to the Italian television news network La 7.

The Pirelli building was built by the same Pirelli family that founded the tire and cable giant of the same name, but the company is no longer associated with the structure. Instead, the building, in the heart of Italy's most important financial district is the headquarters of the Lombardy regional government.

Okay the pilot has an Italian name. But what about the passengers?? I want to know who they were and what their names were, if there's any arabic people on board that plane. He sent out a distress signal, and as other people have pointed out why crash into a sky scraper??

And the plane was not damaged!

I thought this was a joke

and as other people have pointed out why crash into a sky scraper??

Seems obvious to me. A skyscraper is more likely to be hit by an airplane, than say, an underground subway train or a basement parking garage is!

Right????

There are two things that make this highly suspect of a terrorist attack.

1)US buildings in Italy are being evacuated
2)The plane struck a building In the heart of the Milan financial district ie: 9/11

Others reasons that this would point to terrorism is the release of an OBL tape today and the announcement that the German Synagogue may have been the act of trrorism when reported earlier that is wasn't

Some say pilot error. But wouldn't a skyscraper be pretty easy to avoid hitting? Also, could the distress calls have been faked? The sudden change to say it was an accident occurred after the stock market plunged.

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