Plane flies into Tower Milan [Archive]

Airbubba

18th Apr 2002, 18:39

Milan Crash Pilot Was Experienced Swiss Flyer

Thu Apr 18, 3:22 PM ET

GENEVA (Reuters) - The pilot who crashed into a Milan skyscraper Thursday killing at least three people took off from the southern Swiss town of Locarno and was a Swiss member of a local flying club, television and residents said.

The TSI station from Switzerland's Italian-speaking Ticino region, bordering northern Italy, said the pilot took off in the late afternoon on a flight to Milan's Linate airport.

He was alone in the single-engine, four-seater Rockwell Commander plane when it slammed into Milan's Pirelli building in what Italian National Air Safety Agency officials have said was an accident.

The television station gave no source for its report and police in Locarno told Reuters they could give no information, saying Milan investigators were handling the investigation.

But a former president of the Locarno flying club, Pietro Marci, identified the pilot as Gino Fasulo, a 67-year-old Swiss member of the club.

"He had been flying for a long time. He had a lot of experience," Marci told Reuters.

Marci, who had known Fasulo for some 10 years, said another club member saw the pilot shortly before he left and he appeared to be in good health.

Italian transport officials said the pilot reported technical problems shortly before smashing into the upper floors of the Pirelli office block, which dominates the skyline of Italy's financial capital.

At least three people died and several dozen were injured, a senior local government official said.

_________________________________________

And from CNN:

"The Swiss pilot of the Rockwell Commander A112 plane was identified by Italian civil aviation officials as Luigi Fasulo, 75, who was well-known to people at Magadino Airport, near Locarno, Switzerland, local TSI television said. "

Evo7

18th Apr 2002, 18:50

Great aviation journalism again. BBC Radio first reported it to be a "Cessna Piper" "tourist plane" and then a "two-seat Piper trainer" (Tomahawk?!?!?) :confused: :rolleyes:

Still, "BBC transport correspondent Tom Symonds says Pipers have a history of safety problems to do with systems failures." (from http://news.bbc.co.uk) so that's that one solved... :(

steamchicken

18th Apr 2002, 19:05

BS Factor seems high.....heavy reporting about a Piper, "capable of carrying 10 persons". Now all news sources I've checked on the net - Washington Post, Ananova.com, Frankfurter Allgemeine - seem to agree it's a Aero Commander. Not really the weapon of choice for your average terrorist kamikaze! Greaser - aeroplanes have hit buildings unintentionally before, including the Empire State.

*edit* this may be a scale thing. The building is 30 stories/175 m, but some of the TV angles make it look much bigger

Maxiumus

18th Apr 2002, 19:50

Does anyone know the wx in Milan at the time? If it was VMC, its hard (but not impossible of course) to believe he accidentally hit the building.
I can't believe a gear problem would prevent the aircraft from turning. Perhaps some sort of technical problem could have rendered the pilot unable to turn the aircraft, but it seems very unlikely. And if so, unbelievably bad luck that he managed to find the tallest building around.

The Greaser

18th Apr 2002, 19:55

Totally agree with Max. weather was perfect VMC

320DRIVER

18th Apr 2002, 20:28

With perfect VMC WX, and this being a lone, high-rise building for miles, it is fishy to say the least. First reports say the pilot reported that he had a landing gear problem and possibly hit the building while extending the gear manually at which point he was looking down at the floor inside the aircraft.

Considering the top buidling is at about 300 feet AGL, it sounds a funny altitude/position to be extending your gear manually?!

Other sources say he was facing the sunset, but come on guys, this is a skyscraper and not an enemy fighter!

As pointed above, and as stated by Jim Hall (ex-NTSB chief) the damage to the building does seem to be out of proportion with an AeroCommander hitting it at normal speed.

Considering that the aircraft (or what was left of it) went right through the building and at the same level, this would indicate, that the aircraft hit the building straight and level and at high speed.

I do not think that this is necessarily a terrorist attack but I still believe it was a deliberate act, for whatever reason the pilot had...

FreighterJock

18th Apr 2002, 21:48

Well...the WX at LIN was Cavok....and indeed the old man had a gear mulfunction because he told ATC.
Then ATC instructed the Pilot to fly west of LIN Apt in order to deal with the problem and , once solved (possibly) , to contact ATC again to be put back in the flow to land.
Most probably The little Aero Commander didn't have an Autopilot, and while dealing with the handle to crank the landing gear down, the poor chap didn't look OUT and got space-disoriented.
Some ground witnesses say there was some smoke coming out the plane before crashing.
Therefore it was just an accident.:(

Airbubba

18th Apr 2002, 21:53

Looking at the Swiss aircraft registry it looks like the aircraft was HB-NCX, a Rockwell 112TC serial number 13014 built in 1976.

Luigi Fasulo is the listed owner.

llamas

18th Apr 2002, 21:55

Not that I know a dam' thing about it, but . . .

The Pirelli building is, as I understand, an all-stressed-concrete structure, not a steel-frame-and-concrete structure as, for example, the WTC towers. For that reason, as far as my lame knowledge of structures goes, the floor decks are generally far stronger and stiffer than they would be in other types of construction.

In such a case, I would be not entirely amazed if a (relatively) light A/C like a Commander, impacting the building at a given level, were to stay on that level, the floor decks being stiff and strong enough to contain it.

Even more so if what we are talking about exiting the opposite face of the building is not the whole A/C but the A/C broken up into many smaller, lighter pieces.

JMHO, any real civil engineers are welcome to point out the whole depth and breadth of my ignorance.

llater,

llamas

steamchicken

18th Apr 2002, 22:05

Yeah, it's one of the first tall buildings in Europe, and it's all heavy concrete.

FreighterJock

18th Apr 2002, 22:18

Yeah... the Pirelli building is made of heavy concrete and steel and even apart from that it doesn't surprise me if a light plane flying at it' cruise speed digs that big a hole in there...
:(

stickyb

19th Apr 2002, 04:30

BBC is now saying there was a problem at Linate

The inquiry will probe why an emergency runway at the city's Linate airport was not available, forcing the pilot to seek an alternative landing when he got into difficulties.

Full Link:

BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1938000/1938606.stm)

expedite_climb

19th Apr 2002, 07:17

It may seem to be difficult to fly into a building in vmc, but dont forget - florida was it ?

3 Flight crew didnt spot the autopilot had disconnected and the aircraft just flew into the ground because they were distracted by the faulty gear light.

So if a 67yr old pilot on his own has technical probs - it is quite possible that he was heads in !

Evo7

19th Apr 2002, 07:37

Yeah, but it is much easier to hit the ground than to fly straight and level into the one big building in the area. It seems like an amazingly improbable accident... :confused:

N380UA

19th Apr 2002, 08:16

From what I’ve heard on the radio this morning, there war no problems called for at all and that the initial reports of such calls were just made up. The local police in the mean while said that even though it seems like a tragic accident, something just doesn’t add up here.

Lanceair

19th Apr 2002, 08:22

Radio News media here in OZ this afternoon reported "It now appears the pilot may have suffered a heart attack, causing him to lose control of his light aircraft"

Massive damage for such a lightie ?

Lanceair

Twistedfirefighter

19th Apr 2002, 08:41

Just a thought.What if (and it's just an if), the guy had to get out of his seat to deal with the gear. Where is the crank handle? or the cranckeable entity in the Commander? What if he's lost it while fumbling in the back for instance?

Spiney Norman

19th Apr 2002, 09:03

I used to fly a Rockwell 114, admittedly some time ago now, but as I remember, there is no 'crank handle'. If the gear malfunctions, and it often does cos the Electro-hydraulic powerpack was notoriously unreliable, you dropped the gear by gravity. This was no problem with the main gear which are large heavy units and come down with a satisfying thump. The nosewheel however has to extend against the airflow which requires you to slow to 75kts and waggle the rudder, then, if you're lucky, the green light comes on. The emergency gear drop lever is, if my memory serves me right, near your right knee.
One of my unofficial start up checks used to be to listen for a 'mooing' sound from behind the seats when the master switch was switched on cos that meant the pump was working! I'm not going to get into theorising about the incident but thought the info might be useful. By the way, 75kts is the normal approach speed for an AC114 with flaps 20.

Spiney

SEE AR JAY

19th Apr 2002, 10:15

Latest reports claim it to be a suicidal action, but without a terrorist background. Guy is said to have been in major financial problems.

What an ass to take other peoples lives for his own misery.

Sad.

CRJ

BelowTenThousand

19th Apr 2002, 10:27

This is what they are saying in Oz tonight.....

look here (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/World/story_29995.asp)

Milan plane pilot wanted to suicide

AFP - The pilot of the plane that crashed into Milan's tallest building, killing himself and two others, was a failed businessman who wanted to end his life, his son said in comments to a newspaper.

La Repubblica quoted Luigi Fasulo's son Marco and a friend, identified only as Franco, who both insisted the incident yesterday that immediately raised the spectre of a new September 11-type attack was a suicide.

"What do you mean an accident? It was a suicide, a suicide, I'm telling you. There were people who wanted to ruin him, to destroy him financially, so he committed suicide," Marco Fasulo said, without elaborating.

The friend Franco, meanwhile, recounted his last conversation with the pilot on Sunday.

"I am ruined, they used up everything I had, it's a group located here, they got more than a million dollars from me," the friend quoted Luigi as saying.

The aircraft, a light Piper Air Commander, crashed into the upper floors of the landmark, 30-storey Pirelli tower, Milan's tallest building in the city centre.

The other two dead were women employed in the tower.

After the initial scare of a new terrorist attack, Italian Interior Minister Claudio Scajola said later yesterday the crash was "probably an accident" amid reports that the pilot had sent a distress message to the control tower of Milan's Linate airport shortly before the crash.

'...a light Piper Air Commander...' bloody Australian journos :rolleyes:

ROLLER STAMP

19th Apr 2002, 16:47

CRJ you are out order making those comments about the poor guy!Nobody knows exactly what happened.If he did want to take himself out he is hardly going to call linate tower with gear problems!! Most probable cause was he got disorientated trying to lower the gear down using the emergency system.I have been in this position myself.The gear doesn,t lock down straight away,so give him a break untill the cause is established.

HotDog

20th Apr 2002, 08:55

Roller Stamp, I suggest you read previous posts by N380VA and Spiney Norman.:rolleyes:

Bigmouth

20th Apr 2002, 11:05

How does a Rockwell 112 cause that much damage to a large building?
The B-25 in the Empire State Building didn´t make a hole that big.

swashplate

20th Apr 2002, 12:14

Perhaps damage would depend on:

1. A/C wieght and speed at impact? (Kinetic Energy = 0.5mass * velocity squared)

2. Amount of fuel (liquid high explosive :eek: ) being carried?

3. Strength of building at impact point? (eg concrete/steelpost or window)

4. Any other factors - wind speed/direction, local air pressure....etc.....etc......

.....Perhaps we should wait for the official inquiry.... :rolleyes:

arcniz

20th Apr 2002, 18:25

Bigmouth - good query, but possibly misleading.

Aside from damage caused by fire, there doesn't seem to be so very much impact damage to the P building. It is visually quite consistent with the 200,000-400,000 ft pounds that a Rockwell single could deliver on square blow, vs the 200 - 400 million ft pounds from a heavy aircraft at roughly 100x the weight and 10x the velocity.

Reports state that the pilot used to fuel at Linate in Transit to get a break on Swiss fuel taxes, so quite possibly he was traveling light on fuel. Another hundred gallons would have made some difference in intensity of the fire, but not soooo much as thousands and thousands of gallons.

The big difference is that the Pirelli Building is a 'curtain wall' structure in which central reinforced concrete castings support the works, along with columns distributed about the floors. The outer covering is intentionally as 'light' as possible to minimize loading, In the 50's, when the P building was constructed, the engineers had more 'respect' for gravity, so they were generous in application of structural materials. You could remove ALL of the exterior glass walls and the building would still stand nicely....until rain ate the rebar.

By contrast, the WTC buildings really depended for their rigidity and structural integrity on the unique exterior wall of stainless steel girders and crossbrace structures now familiar to many as rubble. That design is/was inherently much more vulnerable to fatal damage from a massive external impact that cuts the structure. It was no coincidence that Governor Rockefeller & clan were in the STEEL business and not the concrete business. From a hundred years hindsight, history may be more inclined to treat the WTC's as a political boondoggle gone terribly wrong -- but that concept is not very PC at the moment.

llamas

22nd Apr 2002, 14:02

No quibble with what arcniz describes, except to add that there's a reason that towers like the WTC and such were not built using the structural concrete-curtain wall techniques of eg the Pirelli building, and it's quite simple - you can't build a building of 100 stories or more using that technique because

a) the weight gets so huge that there's very few foundations that will carry it, and

b) the compressive strength of reinforced concrete in the lower floors is not great enough to support the weight of the upper floors.

I'm sitting in a reinforced concrete-curtain wall building right now. It's only 6 stories tall. The floor deck between the ground floor and the first floor is 32" thick of solid concrete. You'll see plenty of reinforced concrete buildings around, but seldom more than about 25-30 stories. In some places - eg Lousiana - you just can't build that way, because in a couple of years your 30 storey building would be a 29 storey building, and so on.

llater,

llamas

arcniz

22nd Apr 2002, 17:54

LLAMAS - I mostly agree with your comments regarding height vs strength vs weight. The taller the building, the more it must deal with aircraft-like issues in both structure and aerodynamics.

There was a certain hubris in the WTC design - for example in regard to the the emphasis on open interior space with largely token columns supporting the cantilevered floors. This was possibly a choice of aestherics over structure.

One can look at the Transamerica building in SFO for a 3rd choice - using both internal and external bracing in a manner such that each is largely redundant to the other. I have heard that this 'over-engineering' was really not so much the choice of the designers as political cover required by the local building authorities, and that it really hurt financially, but the result is an extraordinarily strong, resilient 49-storey structure in a locality where earthquakes sometime knock over single story houses.

On reflection, I sincerely apologize for the harsh sound of my coments regarding the origins of the WTC buildings. I did not mean to suggest that anyone involved foresaw and ignored the possibility of the horrible events which have transpired since.

The WTC designs were conceived in a pre-D.B. Cooper era when man was about to walk on the moon and the principal perceived threat was instant vaporization from nuclear attack. The WTC buildings were a great work of art and an expression of human optimism in its finest form.

Midnight Blue

22nd Apr 2002, 22:25

Here are just my two cents to the idea of committing suicide in an airplane. - Why should he fly to Milano to do this instead of flying into one of the many mountains surrounding Locarno?

N380UA

23rd Apr 2002, 06:15

I don’t want to get out on a limb here, but what number of circumstances must occur all, at the same time for an airplane to hit a building in such a way all by coincidence? Although not outside of the realm of possibilities, this seems rather strange doesn’t it? Especially when listening to eyewitness accounts of the aircraft practically taking aim for it – though I do realize just how unreliable these accounts can be. The suicide notion was introduced by the pilot’s son which should be the best source of information concerning family issues the guy might have had. From what I could gather from the news, the Italian regional government of Lombardy has ruined Luigi Fasulo hence, should this indeed be a suicide, the government building in Milan and not somewhere in the alp’s. Notwithstanding the fact that the investigation is of course still in the midst of it, it seems more plausible to me than any other cause. Having said that, I’m am afraid that such acts may become the last stand for people who ran out of options, to stress their point one last time, generally suicidal or other.:confused: :( :mad:

arcniz

24th Apr 2002, 06:11

N380UA - From news reports the fellow had two sons..the older one told the press that his father never would suicidarse, the younger emotionally said to the press that it was obviously suicide because.. Neither would pre-qualify as reliable, under the circumstances.

Having earned my first pp brevet pushing Cubs around the peaks and valleys of CH, I have a personal sense of the close fraternity that exists among the small band of Swiss aviators. However desperate or miserable one might be, it would be hard to turn away from the Mitgleidschaft (sense of membership) that binds together this unique community. I do not understand the psychology of suicide, but the idea of renouncing what one holds most dear does not seem very appropriate on the way out.

The ingenious Swiss have developed some very sophisticated and civilized ways to do themselves in - heavy cream sauces, too much grappa, a few too many Brisago's. Aerial props are hardly necessary or appropriate.

FWIW, I believe he maybe just infarcted in the wrong place.

Midnight Blue - I agree.. he evidently flew to Linate and then
turned back toward downtown.. hardly necessary, if the intent were present before the fact.

steamchicken

24th Apr 2002, 19:52

Architecturally, the reason that the Pirelli is still one of the highest CONCRETE buildings in the world is that you can't build higher in massive concrete COS IT'S HEAVY! Local US politics is nothing at all. I still think that the hole looks big because most news photos crop in on the target - therefore it could be any skyscraper, there is no sense of scale. It's a smaller building than even one WTC tower, and the plane was smaller. So, if you don't see the context, you'll be fooled. Most floors of the building reopened yesterday.

PS: Psychologists, like my woman, generally agree that the relatives of suicides find it extremely hard to accept the fact of suicide. The suicide of a relative leaves a sense of guilt behind, whether it is justified or not. The reason is that we cannot accept that we will die - any other disease or accident or murder allows us to avoid this conflict.

aardvark2zz

6th Feb 2003, 21:24

Milan crash blamed on poor pilot skills

The crash sparked memories of 11 September

A pilot who flew his plane into a Milan skyscraper was probably unable to handle technical problems he encountered, an investigation has concluded.
But air traffic controllers at Milan's Linate airport also issued "ambiguous, inadequate and contradictory" instructions, said Italy's National Agency of Air Security.

The Swiss pilot, 67-year-old Luigi Fasulo, died in the crash, along with two workers inside the Pirelli tower.

The incident in April 2002 sparked memories of the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center, although the authorities quickly ruled out terrorism as the cause.

Other theories had included suicide, technical failure or that the pilot had become ill.

Investigators concluded that the suicide theory was "reasonably improbable".

Fasulo was criticised for his flying skills
"The most likely cause of the incident was the inability of the pilot to adequately control the direction of the plane during the last phase of the flight, in which there were technical operating and environmental problems," the agency concluded.

"A technical problem, operational discomfort due to a lack of training and ambiguous, and inadequate and contradictory radio instructions" contributed to the crash, it said.

Mr Fasulo had a history of fllight mishaps, said Adalberto Pellegrino, spokesman for the agency.

As the pilot came in to land, he reported problems with his landing gear and was diverted by air traffic controllers, but received the confusing messages.

Mr Fasulo may then have been blinded by the sun, unable to see the tower looming towards him, investigators believe.

Debris rained onto the streets
The criticism of the Linate air traffic controllers comes after a runway collision in 2001, in which 118 people died.

A near-miss was reported last month in very similar circumstances, when a plane speeding down the runway towards take-off had to abort the operation because of a light aircraft coming in to land.

There have also been accusations of regular absenteeism from the control tower.

The flight safety agency recommended in its report into the Pirelli tower crash that flights over densely populated areas should be avoided.

The two office workers who died in the plane crash worked for the Lombardy Regional Council.

Mr Fasulo had flown to Milan from Lugano in Switzerland when the crash happened. His son said after the crash that his father had financial worries and may have wanted to kill himself.

tarjet fixated

22nd Feb 2003, 21:28

Hi guys,
it was a Rockwell commander,the weather was severly VMC,the guy was old and with lots of hours,he reported gear problems before going around RWY 36R in LIN,the sun was setting behind the Pirelli building and he crashed into it straight and level.
these are the hard facts...what some investigators have been saying and that not many newspapers have reported is that the man had big financial problems primarily due to a dispute with the Lombardy region that halted some kind of financing for something he wanted to do...and guess where do their offices are???

Monocock

23rd Feb 2003, 21:13

A message to the PPRuNe AAIB members.......

Imagine if Mr Fasulo had relatives, children, friends or colleagues who read these forums. Be honest, do you think that some of the speculative comments that have been written to date would be of much solace to them?

Please don't forget that when you click the SUBMIT REPLY button, your words are not just on record for the length the thread stays current, they will be in the archive forever.

Having been in a situation where I have known a person who has died in a light aircraft (an incident that was equally scrutinised on this forum) I would personally prefer that the sequence of events leading up to this incident was left for the paid experts to deal with.

No offense meant to the owners of any posts in this thread but I can't say I like where it's going.

aardvark2zz

26th Feb 2003, 18:51

I don't trust governments or corporations to give me the truth. Case in point: Air Transat 236. We've been waiting over 18 months for a report and I'm still waiting. It's a broken wrong pipe and it takes them that long AND they have the plane, pilots, mainenance guys available to interview !???? and it still takes 'em that long. :-(

If people don't like freedom of speech then they can click-to somewhere else. I absolutely refuse to hide information like an ostrige. This was especially done in the past. Look we've had fewer wars with all the quantities of information going around. I don't want to go to a Stalinist era of no-, incorrect-, and lack-of-information. Nyet no. Da yes!

I prefer rumors to censorship. I judge myself (and others) to have enough brains to know when to take things with a grain of salt. Those who don't, deserve what they read. :-)

Rumors can encourage/force some to speak-up in a situation that would otherwise have remained silent. Watergate would have taken dozens of years to resolve if everyone waited for the facts to be confirmed.

As for recorded for ever. I just editted this post to remove some information. I could of removed all of the text. The owner can remove stuff almost anytime.

Keep the blue side up; wherever up is ?