Italian Military Jet Crashes Into School; 12 Die

An Italian military jet crashed in flames into a suburban high school today, killing at least 12 people and injuring 70, officials reported.

Students jumped out of windows of their two-story, red brick school to escape the smoke and flames, witnesses said. Others trapped on the top floor were rescued by firefighters on ladders.

Rescuers found one teen-age girl uninjured under the plane’s wing and continued to dig for bodies four hours after the mid-morning crash. Bologna prosecutor Mario Forte said he expected the death toll to remain at 12.

Officials said all the dead were believed to be students. Many of the injured suffered serious burns. About 200 students, ages 14 to 18, were in school at the time.

Police said the pilot bailed out and the plane crashed minutes later into a classroom of the school, smashing a 12-foot-wide hole in the wall on the second floor.

“I saw this plane in flames coming down slowly, it seemed to level off and then it turned suddenly and crashed into the school,” a witness told state RAI television.

Students rushed in panic to escape as flames and smoke swept through the building, witnesses said.

“The upper floor was full of flames and students who were immersed in the smoke were jumping out,” a young woman said.

The plane, a Macchi 326 trainer, came down in Casalecchio di Reno, three miles outside of this central Italian city, and crashed into the Gaetano Salvemini technical high school.

Air force Gen. Carlo Brandini said the plane was on a mission to test radar effectiveness for anti-aircraft readiness. The aircraft took off from Villafranca military airport near Verona, 55 miles north of Bologna, and was scheduled to return there.

The pilot, 2nd Lt. Bruno Viviani, “reacted according to regulations,” the general said. Brandini said the jet’s only engine had developed some sort of problem and caught fire.

The 24-year-old Viviani suffered fractured vertebrae and was questioned by a prosecutor in the hospital, the Italian news agency ANSA said.