A small plane slammed into the upper floors of the Pirelli tower in the centre of Milan this afternoon, killing at least four people and triggering fears of a repeat of the September 11th attacks.
However Italian Interior Minister Mr Claudio Scajola confirmed this evening that the crash was an accident.
It is understood the pilot sent a distress message to the control tower of a nearby airport shortly before the crash.
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The Pirelli Building in the centre of Milan
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At least three people including the pilot were killed and some 15 others were injured, emergency services and investigators said, but the majority of the 300 people working in the building were unscathed, if badly shaken.
It was clearly an air accident, Mr Adalberto Pellegrino of the National Air Safety Agency told reporters. He said there appeared to be no foul play.
Despite Mr Scajola's public reassurances, Italy's air force was put on full alert "until the situation becomes clear," the crisis unit in Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi's office said. It said the decision was taken after consultations between Mr Berlusconi and Defence Minister Mr Antonio Martino.
Italy's Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) chief Mr Alfredo Roma said the pilot had been "flying by sight", or without recourse to instruments.
Civil aviation sources said the pilot had signalled he was unable to lower his landing gear, and was apparently trying to do so manually when he lost control of the single-engined plane.
The aircraft crashed into the 25th floor of the 30-storey building, a Milan landmark which houses the Lombardy regional authority headquarters, at around 5:45 p.m. (3:45 p.m. Irish time), witnesses said.
The impact gutted the 25th floor and badly damaged the floors immediately above and below.
An employee of a company located in the tower told reporters the uppermost floors were unoccupied. "The top floors are being renovated and therefore in theory unoccupied."
Smoke poured from the skyscraper in the central Piazza Duca D'Aosta, carpeting the surrounding streets with wreckage and office papers. Police sealed off the area.
"We heard a horrible noise, the skyscraper shook, then we threw ourselves down the stairs to get away," a shocked employee told reporters.
"I felt the skyscraper vibrating under my feet, and we immediately got out using the stairs," said another employee, Silvia Varatel, a member of the staff of the Lombardy regional authority.
"There wasn't any jostling even though only two people could get down the stairs at a time."
The Pirelli tower, designed in the 1950s, is one of the world's highest concrete skyscrapers and the tallest building in Italy's financial capital.
The Piper Air Commander-type plane had taken off from Locarno, Switzerland, according to Swiss authorities.
Italy's ANSA newsagency named the pilot as an Italian, Gino Fasulo. It was not known how many people were on board the plane.
In New York, Wall Street's Dow Jones industrials index initially dropped sharply on news of the crash before it recovered. The Frankfurt exchange also shed over 2.2 per cent and then rebounded, while the Milan after-hours electronic stock market suspended trading.
The light aircraft which crashed flew from an airfield near the southern Swiss town of Locarno, according to authorities at the nearby airport at Lugano.
The pilot, who was in his sixties, was an experienced pilot from the local air club, Italian-language Swiss television TIS reported.