Ultralight aircraft crashed in the Vercelli area: the public prosecutor's office opens an investigation. Autopsy ordered on the bodies of father and daughter

The Vercelli public prosecutor's office has opened a file on the plane crash that occurred Saturday morning in the countryside between Lamporo and Livorno Ferraris. Massimiliano Monticone, 49, and his daughter Simona, 18, were on board the ultralight plane that crashed to the ground and ended up in a rice field. The aim of the investigation is to ascertain the causes of the crash and try to understand whether it was an aircraft failure, engine failure or human error.

The magistrates will also try to establish who was at the controls of the aircraft at the time. Monticone was a former Air Force pilot, and worked in the Enav radar centre at Linate airport. Autopsies will be performed on the two bodies, which were taken to the mortuary of the S. Andrea hospital in Vercelli.

The ultralight crashed between the municipalities of Livorno Ferraris and Lamporo, near the SP02 and the Cavour Canal. Married, Monticone shared with his two children, Simona and an older boy, a passion for flying that had made him become an air traffic controller after his experience with the Air Force where he had attended the 105th Auc course.

There are many memories on his social networks of family flights, such as the one to pick up the boys and take them home after they had gone to see the grand prix at Imola last June. 'I don't like flying alone,' he wrote three years ago, 'When you discover something beautiful you enjoy it more if you share it with someone. Usually the only flights I make alone are those for emergency training, but often even for these flights I find company (from a resistant stomach)'. The last post, on the other hand, dated 24 August, relays a message from Gold Standard Aviation on the crash of a small aircraft in which the pilot was killed.

To pay tribute to Monticone and his daughter Simona, residents of the San Michele suburb, a minute's silence was observed in the Vercelli rice fields on Saturday. For the New Year's Eve in Alessandria - scheduled for today, 31 August - the 12 o'clock toast was cancelled, and the toast at midnight was replaced with a minute's silence.