An excursion that ended in tragedy last night on the top of Mount Genzana. After watching the sunset on the Abruzzo mountain, late yesterday evening, a couple of friends were going back down to the valley. Here, on the path that connects the Cinquemiglia plain to Frattura, a hamlet in the municipality of Scanno, the tragic accident occurred .

The driver, a forty-year-old, Luca Persiani, a well-known Formula 3000 driver , died after throwing himself from the jeep which fell several hundred metres into a ravine, probably following a wrong manoeuvre.

According to the reconstruction carried out by the Guardia di Finanza of the Alpine Rescue, which is investigating the incident, it emerged that the two had left yesterday afternoon from Albano Laziale to the Abruzzo mountains for an excursion. After waiting for sunset and having dinner, the two decided to return home, also considering the adverse weather conditions. The 40-year-old, arriving near a fire brigade repeater, apparently lost his bearings due to the fog, taking the wrong and steep path.

"Get out immediately, it's dangerous," Persiani allegedly told the 27-year-old woman who was in the car with him. A precaution that saved the woman's life. The driver then attempted to get back in several ways, but the situation seemed compromised. When he realized he couldn't do anything more, he threw himself from the moving vehicle, falling hundreds of meters. The vehicle also ended up in a ravine, after sliding for six hundred meters in the woods. The girl could do nothing but scream and call for help.

"I saw him jump out of the jeep and die before my eyes. I felt helpless," the woman told rescuers who managed to reach the path around 1:30 this morning, after about two hours, due to the fog. The young woman was transported to the hospital in Sulmona in good condition. Persiani's body, by order of the Sulmona prosecutor's office, was transferred to the morgue of the Peligno hospital for an autopsy. Volunteers from the Alpine and Speleological Rescue Service, the Sulmona firefighters, the 118 paramedics and the Carabinieri of the Castel di Sangro company also intervened on site.