His name was Pietro Stipa, he was 26 years old and a Tuscan from Argentario, the young officer of the Navy's SDAI (Mine Demining and Defense Against Treacherous Vehicles) unit who died last night in the waters between Isola Madre and those of Santo Stefano in La Maddalena .
The victim was on board a dinghy he owned together with his girlfriend, who remained unharmed, when the boat crashed onto some outcropping rocks.
The incident occurred around 4 this morning.
The Coast Guard intervened on site, the young man's body was recovered about an hour later , at first light, and is now in the morgue of the La Maddalena cemetery.
The reconstruction
According to an initial reconstruction by the Coast Guard, around 4 am the young man decided to take a dinghy ride with his girlfriend, who lives in La Maddalena. As soon as we left the port, after a few minutes of navigation, the vessel, for reasons to be ascertained, ended up on the rocks emerging in front of the island of Santo Stefano, a treacherous passage that everyone knows.
Stipa was considered an experienced seaman and above all with an in-depth knowledge of the places of the archipelago due to his work in the Navy. The impact with the rocks was fatal for him: thrown from the dinghy he hit his head on the rocks, losing consciousness and ending up under water. He would then have drowned.
The alarm
The alarm was raised by a passerby who was on the quay of the port and heard the loud noise of the impact of the dinghy on the rocks. The Coast Guard patrol boat arrived at the accident site a few minutes later and found the girl in a state of shock but unharmed. It was she who alerted the Captain's Office soldiers that her boyfriend was also on board. The search for the missing man continued for an hour, in the end the body of the young officer was recovered from the seabed.
(Unioneonline)
