Days after Italian fashion icon Vittorio Missoni’s plane vanished off the coast of Venezuela, a new development suggests that the designer may have been kidnapped.
Telecom Italia Mobile confirmed to the press early Monday that the mobile phone of fellow passenger Guido Foresti sent an SMS to his son late Sunday night (Jan 6) that read, “Call now, we are reachable.”
Subsequent calls to the number were not returned, but the family is now hopeful that the group may not have perished in a plane crash when the plane went off the radar on January 4.
“It’s better to be kidnapped than at the bottom of the sea,” Missoni told reporters outside her home on Monday. “We hope all four are alive and well. We also hope that the searches go in all directions.”
Missoni further shed light on the ongoing investigation in a statement to Page Six Monday. “I am in direct touch with the Italian Foreign Ministry and now in Rome to meet people and the Police of State to report the disappearance of my brother … ” she said. She also confirmed that her brother, Luca, a pilot, is in Venezuela and is actively participating in search flights over the area.
“At this time,” she continued, “we have no further specifics regarding these efforts except to say we are confident they will continue at the same pace, and that the search will explore all possible avenues. Our deepest thanks go to the multitude of supporters that have reached out to us from all over the world, and we ask that you join us in the hope that the Missoni, Scalvenzi, and Foresti families will soon be reunited. We are full of hope and trust the great work the Authorities have been doing so far. We will not give up.”
Still, the pilot of a plane that took off one minuted after the ill-fated flight told Italy’s La Stampa Monday that their hopes may be for naught.
“I saw them right in front of me as they were swallowed up by a huge cumulus cloud,” pilot Enrique Rada told Turin daily La Stampa in an interview published on Monday. “It was a lightning bolt. It must have been a lightning bolt.”
The missing Missoni, 58, runs the fashion house Missoni with Angela and Luca. Their bright zigzag prints have been a hit with fashionistas for decades, and inspired near-hysteria when they were released as part of a 2011 diffusion line with Target that almost instantly sold out.