By Frances Kennedy
Milan - Fears of another September 11-style attack have reverberated around the world after a small plane slammed into a Milan landmark, killing at least five people and injuring dozens.
Cable TV stations interrupted scheduled programming on Thursday to switch to live broadcasts to show the Pirelli tower on fire.
Smoke poured from the upper floors after the Piper aircraft with only the elderly pilot on board crashed between the 25th and 26th floors of the 31-storey building.
| 'We believe it isn't a terrorist attack' |
First word of the incident sent tremors through financial markets, and Wall Street's Dow Jones index dropped about one percent on the news.
The Speaker of Italy's upper house of parliament initially said the tower had "very probably" been the target of a terror attack, but word swiftly came that the crash was probably an accident.
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Police said the pilot sent out a distress call four minutes before impact.
Italian transport officials said the plane, which was on its way from the Swiss town of Locarno to Milan's Linate Airport, had reported undercarriage problems and was circling the city trying to land at the airport.
"We believe it isn't a terrorist attack," said one police officer.
| 'The noise was deafening' |
The impact, said by witnesses to resemble an earthquake, shattered glass and triggered an inferno in the top four storeys of the Pirelli building, which houses the Lombardy region's government offices.
The death toll could have been much higher but for the fact that major refurbishment was under way in the upper floors.
The dead included the pilot, named as Gino Fasulo, who was reported to be an experienced flyer. Two people inside the building were killed, and so were two passers-by.
It was unclear why the pilot had veered into Milan's tallest building, but investigators believed he either had a heart attack or was overcome by fumes from a fire on board, according to Sapa-AFP.
Claudio Chetta was on the 24th floor with seven other colleagues when they heard the explosion.
"The building trembled and the windows crashed and collapsed all over us. It was really scary.
"The noise was deafening and we immediately realised that something must have crashed into the skyscraper. There was dust and broken glass everywhere.
"Some people were really frightened. The lifts were blocked, so we went down by the emergency staircase," he said.
Chetta and his colleagues took it in turns to carry a disabled girl in their group down the stairs.
Firemen were able to bring the blaze under control in about an hour, but the upper floors gaped open from the damage.
US President George W Bush was briefed on the incident almost as soon as it happened. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cut short a visit to Bulgaria to return home.
Although terrorism appeared to be ruled out last night, the US State Department has said it considers Milan's Islamic Cultural Centre as a hotbed of Islamic radicals in Europe. - Independent Foreign Service
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