'Miracle' Couple Survives Separate Plane Crashes on Same Day 25 Miles Apart: Report
An Italian couple who sought to have a day to remember last month ended up with exactly that.
In harrowing fashion.
The couple took separate light airplanes to a Dec. 17 lunch date with friends near Turin, and while flying back they ran into bad weather, leading the planes to crash 25 miles apart, according to the Daily Mail.
Stefano Pirilli, 30, was unhurt when the two-seater Tecnam P92 Echo Super came down at San Gillio.
Antonietta Demasi, his 22-year-old fiancee, was hospitalized with pelvic injuries after a similar plane in which she was a passenger crashed at Busano.
A report from The Messenger called Demasi’s injuries “minor” and said she was expected to recover.
The Daily Mail said the two pilots — Paolo Rotondo, 38, and Nicola Fiscarelli, 42 — suffered minor injuries.
“This was Antonietta’s first flying experience, and I’m so sorry for what happened. The day had started so beautifully, and it ended up with us both crashing in separate planes,” Pirilli said. “We are fortunate that we weren’t killed, and our thoughts are with the pilots who were injured. I just want my girlfriend and the pilot to get better — nothing else matters.”
In a headline, the Daily Mail called the outcomes of the crashes a “miracle.”
Pirilli recalled Dec. 17 as one of extremes.
“(It) was a perfect day for flying blue skies, sunshine and not a cloud, it was the perfect way to have some fun in in the air,” he said, noting the couple flew to a lunch near Asti before flying to the west to see the sun over the sea.
Near Turin, the weather turned.
“We fell foul of the weather and the time – the mist started to come up as the temperature dropped, and then all of a sudden it was night,” Pirilli said.
“We decided to try and land at Busano, and I called Antonietta and told her and the pilot of her plane said he would land at the airfield near San Gillio.”
But nothing went as planned.
“As we headed to the airstrip, we were just enveloped in mist and darkness, and we knew there were electricity cables around, but before we knew it we had crashed onto the ground and into a meadow,” Pirilli said, according to the Daily Mail.
“I managed to call the emergency services, and then I tried to call Antonietta, but there was no answer, and then the firefighters turned up and said how crazy it was as this was their second plane crash.”
The crashes are under investigation.
A translation of a report in the Italian-language website Quotidianocanvese reporting on the crash of plane in which Pirilli was a passenger said “the ultralight probably suffered a technical failure and the pilot had no choice but to attempt an emergency landing.”
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