“We heard about the accident on the radio, hearing that the Canadair had left Lamezia Terme and knowing that Matteo was there, we put two and two together. Only afterwards a colleague called us saying he had to give us news, he was the only one who had the good grace to warn us “. Filippo Pozzoli is a big fat man. Former mayor of Erba, but above all father of Matteo, the Canadair 28 pilot who crashed yesterday on Etna during the operations to extinguish a fire on Mount Calcinera. When he tells the Adnkronos about the hours of waiting, faint hope and bitter awareness, he is forced several times to deal with the voice that he breaks with tears. “His brothers Simone and Ismaele went to Sicily to get faster and more precise news, at least they are young, strong and smart and can walk around to get fresh news that unfortunately we do not yet have. What we know we have deduced from the videos that they circulate, all there. Nobody called us, we also tried with the carabinieri and they told us that as soon as they know something they warn us. And we are here to wait. Hope is always there, but seeing the videos it is now difficult to hope, ‘plane exploded “.” Matteo is 56 years old, apart from us his family are his companions, colleagues – says Filippo Pozzoli to Adnkronos – He worked for a company that has contracted out the fire-fighting service, but first of all mine son was one of the three pilot pilots that are in Italy, test driver in Pratica di Mare. He made a military career and became Lieutenant Colonel, but since at that rank he is placed behind a desk, he switched to fire fighting for r keep flying. He also had an accident, but he never thought about stopping flying. That was his life. The last time we saw Matteo was a few days ago, he had come up to visit us as he always did when he had a few days off. He came to stay with us, with his brothers, with his nephews and he had left happy Sunday morning to bring the frozen provisions that his mother prepared for him to his home in Soriano nel Cimino. On Monday, in fact, he would be back to work “. (By Silvia Mancinelli)
