'Are you home? I am just going to drop by!' Man launches kamikaze attack on his mother's house

'It was like seeing a mini-rerun of 9/11'

Swiss woman only survived because she was in the basement at the time



A man flew his plane into his estranged mother’s home after telephoning her to say he was ‘dropping by’.

Konrad Schmidt, 47, flew the rented light aircraft past the building three times before crashing into it at high speed.

There was a huge explosion and fireball but, incredibly, his mother Rosemary, 68, survived because she was in the basement at the time of the suicide attack on Saturday afternoon.

Devastated: Rosemary Schmidt's house was destroyed by her son's suicide attack

Neighbours helped rescue her from the burning shell of her house in the Swiss village of Oberhallau, 50 miles north of Zurich.

Mrs Schmidt, who is being treated for shock, told police that shortly before the crash her son telephoned her from the cockpit to say: ‘Are you home? I am just going to drop by.’

Witnesses said there was ‘no possibility’ that it had been an accident. One said: ‘He had all these flypasts. He was lining himself up. And then he did it. It was like seeing a mini re-run of 9/11.’

Rubble: The pilot is thought to have been depressed, and to have fallen out with his mother

Schmidt, who had been a keen hobby pilot for many years, had hired the Diamond Aircraft DA42 earlier on Saturday.

In the past two years the unemployed electrical engineer had suffered depression and financial problems.

Neighbours said he had a long-running feud with his mother. ‘They had a lot of heavy issues over a lot of things,’ one said. ‘They did not have a good relationship.’

Disaster: Emergency services had to tackle fires at the house in northern Switzerland

Media reports said Schmidt's father Otto was a senior pilot with national carrier Swissair, and was rarely at home during his son's childhood.

