Tragic accident this morning at the Tuscany Flight airfield in San Miniato, where a hang glider crashed, causing the death of two people on board. The victims are Paolo Fagiolini, 59 years old, from Ponsacco (Pisa), an expert pilot and frequent visitor to the airfield, and Riccardo Montanari, 41 years old, from Bientina (Pisa).
The accident occurred around 11.30am, dismaying his friends and members of the flying club who are unable to explain the causes of what happened. The police are currently investigating to clarify the dynamics of the accident. According to initial reconstructions, a sudden technical failure in flight is hypothesized, which would have made the aircraft ungovernable, leading it to crash into the ground at high speed, leaving the two occupants no escape.
The recovery of the bodies, which remained stuck in the pilot cell, required the intervention of the firefighters. Numerous witnesses witnessed the fall, immediately noticing that something was wrong: “It was not clear exactly what happened”, declared Franco Castellani, president of the Tuscany Flight of San Miniato, in a video released to Local Team and Rtv38 . “We saw it coming down and we don’t know if it was a problem with the vehicle or an illness on the part of the pilot. Someone already saw him from above, someone else, like me, when he was close to the ground. I saw the last ten meters and we immediately understood that there was a serious problem because he hit the ground really hard. We immediately alerted 118.”
Fagiolini and Montanari’s flight was scheduled to be the last of the morning. The weather conditions were good and did not present any critical issues, according to what was reported by the airfield managers and the pilot’s friends. “He was an expert pilot to the max, a guy who really knew what he was doing”, underlined Castellani again. “This morning we made several flights, all completed without problems. They were short flights, lasting 5-10 minutes at most.”
The witnesses immediately called for help, who also asked for the intervention of the 118 helicopter. However, the helicopter was canceled when it was realized that there was nothing left to do for the two occupants . The 118 staff of the central ASL, who arrived by land, were only able to confirm the death of the two men, while the carabinieri carried out the investigations and collected the testimonies.
The Tuscany Flight airfield, active for over twenty years thanks to the initiative of a group of enthusiasts including Fagiolini himself, is a small center intended exclusively for ultralights for short overflights of the area. It has no refueling areas or refreshment facilities, except a small bar which was supposed to welcome enthusiasts for lunch today.
In the next few days, the technical assessments on the remains of the hang glider, ordered by the prosecutor’s office, will clarify the causes of the accident.
