2023-04-30 17:37:35
Condolences from the institutions for the death of Alessandro Ghersi, a 34-year-old pilot of the Frecce Tricolori, one of the two victims of the accident that caused an ultralight plane to crash in Val Torre (Udine). The accident took place around 18:30 on 29 April, when some witnesses saw the aircraft crash wrapped in a cloud of smoke released following a flame or an explosion. The Air Force has canceled the traditional May Day event in Rivolto (Udine) for the opening of the aerobatic season, while messages of condolence from politics and the armed forces are multiplying.
From the Academy to NATO missions
Ghersi, captain of the Air Force, married and father of two young children, had been assigned to the national aerobatic team since 2018. In the ten-aircraft formation of the Frecce he occupied the position of Pony 5, the second wingman to the right of the formation leader. After flying for two seasons in the position of Pony 8, since last year he had been moved to the new position, which was also confirmed due to the busy schedule of events on the calendar in 2023.
He had entered the Air Force in 2007 with the “Ibis V” course of the Academy. After flying school he was assigned to the Quarto Stormo of Grosseto, where he obtained the qualification of combat ready pilot on the Eurofighter aircraft, carrying out air defense activities both nationally and in NATO missions. And a few weeks ago, a guest of the high school where he had studied in Domodossola, he had encouraged the boys “to concretely follow their dreams, knowing how to seize victories and defeats, in the knowledge that commitment and sacrifice are needed to achieve results”.
The aircraft that crashed on Mount Musi, in the upper Torre valley, in the municipality of Lusevera (Udine), at a height of regarding 800 metres, was a Pioneer 300 built by Alpi Aviation of Pordenone. Ghersi and his friend had taken off from Campoformido airport, where the ultralight was kept and constantly maintained in a hangar, around 6pm yesterday. It is a two-seater aircraft, owned by the Air Force, used by the pilots of the Frecce tricolori for pleasure flights.
File opened for plane crash and manslaughter
The charred bodies of the two victims were already taken downstream during the night, when the authorization of the duty magistrate of the Udine prosecutor’s office arrived. The wreckage – scattered for tens of meters in the thick of the woods – is seized: the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Udine has delegated the investigations to the Carabinieri and opened a file once morest unknown persons for plane crash and manslaughter, given that the first investigations would seem to exclude the ‘human error: investigators agree in fact that the Pioneer was completely unmanageable, since the captain had vast experience and, despite this, was unable to bring him ashore.
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