Two Killed as Gyrocopter Strikes Enel Cable Car Line Near Dam in Italy's Ossola Valley

A small aircraft crashed and burst into flames Wednesday morning in a remote valley of northern Italy's Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province, killing both people on board after the craft struck the cables of a service cableway near an Alpine dam.

What happened

The crash occurred around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, August 26, near the Campliccioli dam in the municipality of Antrona Schieranco, in Italy's Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province.According to firefighters, the aircraft — a two-seat gyrocopter — struck the cables of a service cableway (funivia) used by Italian energy utility Enel to access the dam, then caught fire.The aircraft came down near the shores of Lake Campliccioli, on a grassy area beside the dam, after the collision.

Both occupants died in the crash: identified as Alessandro Muscinelli, a 62-year-old resident of Premeno who was piloting the aircraft, and his sister-in-law, Antonella Pagliarani, 63, a resident of the Milan area and partner of the pilot's brother, who was traveling as a passenger.

Some initial reports gave the victims' ages as 60 and 63 and identified the pilot as a 64-year-old engineer from Premeno, a small town in the hills above Verbania — details that varied slightly across outlets as the story developed through the morning.

The aircraft involved

The aircraft has been identified as a gyrocopter, or gyroplane — a type of small aircraft that resembles a helicopter but differs mechanically in a key respect: its engine does not directly drive the overhead rotor. Instead, the engine only provides forward thrust, while the unpowered rotor spins freely, kept turning by the airflow moving through it as the craft moves forward, a state of motion known as autorotation.Gyrocopters are lightweight, typically two-seat recreational aircraft popular in mountainous terrain for low-altitude sightseeing flights, given their relatively low cost and ability to operate at slow speeds.

Emergency response

Emergency services, including mountain rescue teams under Italy's national 118 medical dispatch system, responded to the scene, and a helicopter was dispatched for medical evacuation, though it ultimately could not save either occupant.

Firefighters from the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola provincial command responded alongside the "Drago" firefighting helicopter based at Malpensa airport, which assisted with rescue operations and extinguishing the blaze that followed the crash. Investigations into the precise circumstances of the collision remain ongoing, with authorities working to establish the exact sequence of events that led the aircraft into contact with the cableway's cables.

A valley long shadowed by cableway tragedy

The Ossola area carries a heavy and well-known history with cable transport disasters, even though Wednesday's crash involved an aircraft rather than a passenger cable car. The most infamous incident in the wider province came in May 2021, when a cable car on the Stresa–Mottarone line, on the shores of Lake Maggiore not far from where Wednesday's crash occurred, plunged to the ground after one of its support cables snapped roughly 100 meters from the summit station.

That disaster ultimately killed 14 people, including a nine-year-old boy who died in hospital after being airlifted with severe injuries; only a five-year-old boy survived, having been thrown clear of the wreckage.Investigators later determined the line had been closed for a general overhaul from 2014 and had only reopened in August 2016, and a criminal investigation into multiple counts of manslaughter was opened in the disaster's aftermath.

That earlier tragedy, still one of the deadliest cable-transport disasters in modern Italian history, means any incident involving cables and aircraft in the Ossola region draws immediate and heightened attention locally — even though Wednesday's crash involved a service line used for utility access to a hydroelectric dam, rather than a passenger-carrying tourist cableway.

What's next

Italian authorities are expected to open a formal investigation into the crash, examining flight conditions, the aircraft's maintenance history, and the exact circumstances that brought it into contact with the Enel service line's cables. As is standard procedure in fatal aviation incidents in Italy, the case is likely to be referred to prosecutors in Verbania for further investigation, though no charges or findings have yet been announced. The identities and circumstances of the two victims — described in various accounts as close family members, traveling together in the mountains above Lake Maggiore on a summer weekday — have added a somber note to a province still marked by the memory of the Mottarone tragedy five years earlier.