The Pirelli Building in Milan, Italy, was struck Thursday, 18th of April, at 6pm Milan time by a small Piper airplane which impacted the thirty story building on the 25th floor.
FOX NEWS has reported the plane took off from Lucerne, Switzerland with a notorized flight plan. Initial reports were that the flight had originated from Slovenia. Witnesses report an explosion upon impact that shook the entire area and blew debris up to 100 metres away. The plane's flight plan stated the destination was a nearby airport.
The pilot is reported to have called in an SOS to the flight tower about six minutes before impact.
The President of the Italian Senate almost immediately declared it an act of terrorism, but it was soon well known that this bizarre tragedy is an apparent accident. The building is almost entirely in use as government and financial offices for the prosperous Lombardy region. The apparent pilot was reported Thursday to be a 67 year old Italian-born resident of Switzerland.
The Pirelli Building was completed in 1961 and is the penultimate of elegance in modern Italian architecture, and has been admired and studied around the world as an excellent example of design and engineering in concrete and steel construction.
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