Last Friday, a small single-engine plane with two passengers crashed in the French Pyrenees. Now it turns out: One of the two is the Italian underwear magnate Sandro Veronesi, as the French portal Sud Ouest wrote on Thursday.
The 66-year-old billionaire and passionate aviator was traveling in a tourist plane with a 56-year-old Italian when “technical problems” occurred with the plane around 4 p.m. Veronesi maintained the necessary calm and was able to activate the aircraft’s ballistic parachute in time.
A gendarmerie patrol was on a training flight in the area at the same time and was able to observe the sinking aircraft. A rescue operation was then initiated immediately. The two occupants survived the crash uninjured.
Veronesi has built up his considerable fortune (almost 1.8 billion francs according to a 2025 Forbes report) with various fashion brands. In 1986 he founded the Calzedonia hosiery chain. In 1996 the underwear brand Intimissimi was added. In 2023 the Calzedonia group was renamed “Oniverse”; In 2024 it reported sales of around 3 billion francs. (cpf)