Private plane crashes to Olbia: Romanian billionaire dies with Italian family and friends

Tragic Sunday at the gates of Milan.

Shortly after 1pm, a private aircraft departed from Linate and headed for Olbia crashed over a building in via 8 ottobre 2001, in San Donato Milanese, a few steps from the terminus of the yellow line of the Milan underground.

On board the Pilatus (a PC-12 identification marks YR-PDV), in addition to the pilot, there were seven other people. Despite the immediate arrival of the rescuers, there was nothing to do for the eight occupants of the vehicle, all dead. The pilot, the co-pilot, five other adults and a child.

At the controls was Dan Petrescu, 68, owner and pilot of the plane, dual German and Romanian citizenship and wealthy real estate developer who made many investments in his country of origin. The man owns a large number of buildings that over the years he has sold to large commercial chains, his assets are estimated at around 3 billion euros and he is among the richest men in Romania, a country to which he returned after spending many years in Germany to escape the Ceausescu regime. He was reaching Olbia with his family, where he owns a villa and where his 98-year-old mother was waiting for him.

Among the victims also Petrescu's 65-year-old wife, born in Romania with French citizenship, and her son Dan Stefan, 30, born in Munich, also with dual citizenship. With them an Italian man, Filippo Nascimbene, 33 years old from Lombardy, with his wife, small son and mother-in-law, who are instead of French nationality.

According to what has been reconstructed, Petrescu had left Bucharest last Thursday aboard his single-engine turboprop - which he had bought in 2015 together with one of his partners - and had then participated in the baptism of the little child, the son of friends of his son Dan Stefan. Two whole families destroyed.

After the alarm, several fire brigade teams, police and emergency vehicles arrived just a few minutes after the impact.

"The crash was devastating," explained Carlo Cardinali, an official of the Milan fire brigade. The aircraft traveled about 5 miles before crashing and caught fire on impact. Some cars and the building are also on fire.

The stricken building, empty and under renovation, is used as offices and bus parking. The inhabitants of the area heard a very loud hiss and then an explosion, caused by the impact of the plane.

The vehicle "had an engine on fire and swooped down", some witnesses said, "no maneuvers were seen and it just crashed".

"I heard an airplane about to fall, with the propellers stopping, then I felt the windows shake and, like in the movies, I went to the window and saw a column of smoke rise": this is the story of a boy who lives a few tens of meters from the building.

The plane crashed in via 8 October 2001, so named to commemorate the Linate massacre when a resident of San Donato among the 118 victims of the plane crash also died.

The National Agency for Flight Safety (ANSV) has opened an investigation into the plane crash that took place in San Donato Milanese and ordered the dispatch of an investigator on the spot. The Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, which sent the prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano on the spot, has also opened a file, culpable disaster the hypothesis of a crime.

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(Unioneonline / L)