One Dead, Three Injured In Italian Air Force Display Team Crash
An Italian Air Force Frecce Tricolore acrobatic team pilot ejected less than a second before a deadly crash on takeoff from the Turin-Caselle Airport in northwest Italy.
Video posted to YouTube shows one of the team's Aermacchi MB-339PAN jets break from its five-ship formation while struggling to gain altitude. The pilot ejected just before impact. The flaming wreckage careened out of the airport perimeter and struck a car, killing a 5-year-old girl and sending her three surviving family members to the hospital with burns, per a report from Italy's ANSA news agency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_THWypmVaNk
ANSA reported the plane had an engine problem during takeoff before the crash. Frecce Tricolore were reportedly en route to perform at the Vercelli Airshow on Saturday.
https://twitter.com/RadarBoxCom/status/1703083966519992751
The Turin prosecutor's office has begun an investigation into the crash, ANSA reported. The Frecce Tricolore have flown the MB-339PAN since 1982 and were previously equipped with the Fiat G.91 PAN.
Three members of the team and 67 spectators were killed in the Ramstein airshow disaster following a low-altitude mid-air collision in 1988.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RkTigWxL-c
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
Contact the author: stetson.payne@thewarzone.com
