A video went viral this weekend of a plane narrowly missing a group of skiers on Monte Rosa’s Colle Sesia glacier, Italy, during the Mezzalama Trophy race.
The Swiss-registered Piper PA-18 touched down on the Colle Sesia glacier at 13,878 feet (4,230 meters) just before noon on April 26, as hundreds of ski mountaineers ascended toward Capanna Margherita, one of Europe’s highest mountain huts. The video shows the plane landing for only a few seconds before turning and taking off, passing within feet of skiers making their way up the glacier.
The Mezzalama Trophy is a biennial “glacier marathon” that marks the end of the ski mountaineering season. It is a fixture of the international ski mountaineering calendar, renowned for its challenging high-altitude course between the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa. More than 2,100 competitors and spectators were in the area, many traversing the same route as the aircraft.
Luca Calzone, a mountaineer from Piedmont who filmed the event, described it as “a near tragedy” and called on Swiss and Italian aviation authorities to investigate. “It could have been a terrible accident,” Calzone wrote.
Italian, Swiss, and ENAC (Italy’s civil aviation agency) authorities have been urged to review the incident and consider new safety protocols. The Mezzalama Trophy organizers stated they cooperate fully with investigators and are committed to ensuring participant safety in future editions.
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