Dashcam footage captures the moment Romanian billionaire’s plane plunged into disused building

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Dashcam footage has captured the moment a Romanian billionaire’s plane plunged straight down into a disused building, killing all eight on board including a baby christened earlier that day.   

Grainy footage shows the plane plummeting down in a near vertical dive towards buildings on the side of a road in a suburb of Milan.  

The aircraft momentarily disappeared from view before the building erupted in a fireball on impact forcing a thick column of dark smoke into the air. 

The single engine Pilatus PC-12 had taken off from Milan’s Linate airport shortly after 1pm local time and was headed for Olbia in the north of the Italian island of Sardinia.

But the plane crashed just 11 minutes later in San Donato Milanese, a suburb of Milan, and was already in flames before it went down according to witnesses.  

Investigators said they were cleaning up the footage, published by Corriere, to check for a possible engine fire. 

Petrescu, his wife and his son were all killed, along with 32-year-old Italian native Filippo Nascimbene, his wife and their baby son Rafael whose baptism on Sunday morning had brought the group together just hours before the crash. 

Petrescu, 68, one of Romania’s richest men, headed a major construction firm and owned a string of hypermarkets and malls.  

His 65-year-old wife Dorotea Petrescu Balzat, who also had French nationality, and their son Dan Stefano, 30, were killed in the crash.

Meanwhile, Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that Filippo Nascimbene, a 32-year old Italian from Pavia, was killed along with his wife Claire Stephanie Caroline and their baby son Rafael, despite Milanese Prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano initially claiming that only foreigners had died. 

The family were sharing the plane as Dan Stefano Petrescu had attended the baptism of baby Rafael – son of his friend Filippo – who was born in January 2020. 

Miruna Anca Wanda Lozinschi, a Romanian citizen and mother of Claire Stephanie Caroline was also aboard the plane.  

The plane’s black box has been recovered and aviation agency ANSV is now conducting an investigation into the crash. 

Corriere, citing Romanian media, reported that Petrescu’s son worked as a researcher in Canada and had arrived in Italy to attend the baptism of his friend Filippo’s child.

Nascimbene, 32, was born in Pavia and was a manager at Start Hub Consulting, a Milanese company based in the Maciachini area.

‘We are still in disbelief about the tragedy and the death of Filippo,’ said Fabio, a colleague of Filippo’s at Start Hub, to Corriere.

‘On behalf of the whole team, we share the pain of the family for the loss of a friend and a colleague.’

The newspaper said Petrescu bought the plane in 2015 together with Vova Cohn, a former shareholder of the Dinamo Bucharest football club. 

Investigators have opened a probe into what caused the private plane to crash just 11 minutes after takeoff from Milan’s Linate Airport en route to Olbia Airport on the island of Sardinia.

A thick column of dark smoke rose from the crash site and was visible for miles. Several unoccupied cars parked nearby went up in flames.

Firefighters tweeted that no one else but those on board was involved in the early afternoon crash near a subway station in San Donato Milanese, a small town near Milan. 

The building was undergoing renovations but, as it was Sunday, no workers were on site at the time of the crash. 

Siciliano said the plane was proceeding on its flight until ‘a certain point, then an anomaly appeared on the radar screen and it plunged,’ striking the building’s roof.

Control tower officials reported the anomaly, she said, but further details were not immediately given.

The prosecutor said the plane did not send out any alarm signal. It was too early to cite any possible cause for the crash, Siciliano said, adding that the flight recorder has been retrieved. 

The reports said the aircraft had flown from Bucharest, Romania, to Milan on September 30 with no apparent problem.

Witnesses told local media that they heard an unusual noise, like a whistle, followed by a loud bang, then saw a fireball when they looked out of the window.  

The Italian news agency ANSA quoted the national air safety agency ANSV as saying ‘the plane hit the building and started burning.’ It said the aircraft was a PC-12, a single-engine, executive-type plane.

Fire officials said earlier that the aircraft had crashed into the building’s facade. But following further inspection, the prosecutor said it was apparent that the plane had struck the roof.

Firefighters extinguished the flames at the badly charred and gutted building, which reportedly was under renovation.