Billionaire and Family Die After Plane Hits Building

Dan Petrescu was piloting the private jet in Milan
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 4, 2021 2:29 AM CDT
Updated Oct 4, 2021 5:01 AM CDT
Romanian Billionaire, Family Dead After Plane Hits Building
Italian police stand by as firefighters work at the site of a plane crash, in San Donato Milanese suburb of Milan, Italy, Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021.   (Italian Police via AP)

A Romanian billionaire and his family were among the dead when a private jet flew into a building Sunday afternoon in Milan, Italy. All eight people on board were killed, including property tycoon Dan Petrescu, 68, his wife, and their 30-year-old son, the BBC reports. Family friends were also reportedly aboard as the group headed to visit Petrescu's mother at the family villa on the island of Sardinia, the Sun reports, and a child was said to be among the dead. Petrescu, who owned a number of malls and supermarkets and was one of Romania's richest men, was piloting the plane.

The single-engine Pilatus PC-12 had just taken off 11 minutes earlier from Milan's Linate airport when it crashed into an office building that was under renovation and empty about 6 miles away, setting it and several parked, unoccupied cars on fire but injuring no one on the ground. "I heard the sound of a plane above me as if the plane was shutting down its engine," one witness says; some of those who saw the crash report that the plane was already on fire before it hit the building. The National Agency for Flight Safety (ANSV) is investigating the cause of the crash, Deutsche Welle reports. (More Italy stories.)

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