A 22-year-old novice pilot successfully crash-landed a light aircraft on a mountain in the Dolomites, saving the lives of her two passengers.
Silvia De Bon said she had no time to think when the Piper PA-28 began to lose power near the Cima di Cece which, at 2,754 metres (9,035ft), is the tallest peak in the Lagorai mountain chain.
She pulled back on the control wheel and managed to bellyflop the plane on to a snow-covered slope near the top of the mountain, sustaining nothing more serious than cuts to her face and a headache that prompted hospital staff in Trento to keep her in overnight on Wednesday.
Her companions, her brother Mattia De Bon, 27, and his girlfriend, Giorgia Qualizza, 28, were unhurt. They were taken off the mountain by helicopter after finding shelter nearby and phoning for help. “We were passing just under the peak of Cima di Cece, but between the cold and the thin air the engine lost power,” De Bon said. “I was travelling at around 80km/h and I tried to get higher by pulling back the control wheel, but when the engine loses power at a certain speed you start to fall. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to crash’. Then I just tried to put the plane at the same angle as the slope.”
The Piper PA-28 hit a snowy slope in the Lagorai mountains after the engine failed
She said she had to choose immediately whether to pull away to the side of the mountain or crash just beneath the ridge at the top of the Val di Fiemme, realising that she would have clipped the rocks if she tried to turn.
“I saw this slope. It offered the only chance of landing if I was not to crash, so I pulled up the plane and I tried to make it glide,” De Bon told Italian media. “I used my instinct. In those moments you have very few seconds to take a decision. I don’t even remember the landing.” She and her companions had set off in the rented Piper from Arturo Dell’Oro airport in Belluno for a mountain tour that took them to Trento and then Bolzano.
De Bon said they had difficulty restarting the engine in Trento because of the cold, but she did not believe this had anything to do with the engine failure during the flight.
Silvia De Bon, 22, suffered only cuts to her face and a headache after crash-landing the rented plane.
Investigators have cordoned off the crash site, which is at an altitude of 2,100m, and secured the damaged plane to a rock while they seek to determine the cause of the accident.
De Bon, who works as a receptionist in a hotel in the mountain resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo, also in the Veneto region, had only recently returned from the US where she obtained an American pilot’s licence. She is thought to have received her Italian licence a year ago.
She is determined to obtain a commercial licence so that she can fly for an airline, despite her father’s concerns.
