MILAN, Italy (CNN) -- A small plane has hit a skyscraper in central Milan, setting the top floors of the 30-story building on fire, an Italian journalist told CNN.
The crash by the Piper tourist plane into the 26th floor occurred at 5:50 p.m. (1450 GMT) on Thursday, said journalist Desideria Cavina.
The building houses government offices and is next to the city's central train station. Several storeys of the building were engulfed in fire, she said.
Italian TV showed a hole in the side of the Pirelli building with smoke pouring from the opening.
RAI state TV reported that the plane had apparently radioed an SOS because of engine trouble.
Earlier though, in Rome, the senate's president, Marcello Pera, said it "very probably" appeared to be a terrorist attack.
Police and ambulances are at the scene. Many people were on the streets as they left work for the evening at the time of the crash.
Police were trying to keep people away, and many ambulances were on the scene.
There is no word yet on casualties.
TV pictures from the scene evoked horrific memories of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the collapse of the building's twin towers.
"I heard a strange bang so I went to the window and outside I saw the windows of the Pirelli building blown out and then I saw smoke coming from them," said Gianluca Liberto, an engineer who was working in the area told Reuters.
The building is known as the Pirelli skyscraper but the Italian tyre and cable company does not operate out of the building. It is one of the symbols of Italy's financial capital and is one of the world's tallest concrete buildings, designed between 1955 and 1960.
CNN
