Last Sunday, a young couple from Turin, Italy, took a flight on two different light aircraft. Both of their planes crashed during landing, but miraculously, no one was killed or even seriously injured.
Journalists have yet to determine whether this is an incredible stroke of luck amidst extraordinary circumstances or something akin to destiny, where some evil pursued the people but miraculously they escaped.
Thirty-year-old Stefano Pirilli and his 22-year-old girlfriend Antonietta Demasi decided to “have fun in the sky” on Sunday, first flying to visit friends in the nearby town of Asti for lunch, then heading to the sea. They hired two light aircraft, Tecnam P92 Echo Super, for this purpose.
These small aircraft can only accommodate one pilot and one passenger, so Stefano boarded one, and his girlfriend boarded the other. They safely reached Asti. They had lunch with friends and then took off again, heading towards the coast to enjoy the sea.
When they were returning to Turin in the evening, Stefano’s plane crashed into a meadow during landing, followed by Antonietta’s plane, which crashed from a higher altitude.
Stefano was completely unharmed, while Antonietta and her plane’s pilot suffered only minor injuries and were taken to the hospital. Interestingly, it was Antonietta’s first flight ever.
“It was Antonietta’s first flight experience, and I deeply regret what happened. The day started so beautifully but ended with both of us crashing in different planes.
We were lucky that we didn’t die, and our thoughts are with the pilots who were injured. I just want my girlfriend and the pilot to get better; nothing else matters.
Sunday was a perfect day for flying, with blue skies, sunny weather, and not a single cloud; it was a perfect way to have fun in the air,” Stefano recounts.
The weather during the day was indeed excellent, but fog descended over Turin in the evening. Therefore, the pilots decided to land earlier at the nearest airports.
“We decided to try to land in Busano, and I called Antonietta to tell her, and her pilot then said he would land at an airstrip near San Gillio.
As we were approaching the runway, we were just engulfed in fog and darkness, and we knew there were power cables around, but before we could realize it, we crashed to the ground and landed in a meadow.
We didn’t make it to the runway about 100 meters. I managed to get out from under the wreckage and pull out the pilot,” Stefano explains.
He then called the rescue service and his girlfriend, but she didn’t answer. And when firefighters arrived at Stefano’s plane, they told him they had just been at the scene of another plane crash.
“I asked them if there was a man and a woman there, and they said ‘yes,’ and then my blood ran cold, and I realized it was Antonietta.
They told me the woman had been taken to the hospital, but she was fine, while the pilot was more seriously injured.
I rushed to the hospital immediately, and I’ve been here ever since. I just hope Antonietta and Paolo will be discharged soon.”
Meanwhile, the local civil aviation authorities have started investigating both plane crashes, trying to understand why two planes crashed one after another in such a short period.
