The tram was on the line 9 route down Viale Vittorio Veneto when it left the track at about 16:00 on Friday, February 27, 2026, and ploughed into the side of a building in the Porta Venezia district of Milan.
Two people died. One was a 60-year-old man thought to have been a pedestrian struck by the tram, while the second victim and most of the injured were passengers. Up to 40 people were reported hurt, one of them seriously, and ambulances crowded the scene as word spread of people trapped in the wreckage.
Passengers described a noise underneath the tram before it veered, gathered speed and hit the building. “I thought it was an earthquake. I was sitting down and I fell on the floor, along with the other passengers,” one man told Ansa. “It was terrible,” he said. A woman who had boarded at the first stop told Corriere della Sera, “I was standing next to the driver, and they all crashed into me.”
Mayor Giuseppe Sala called the incident a “tragedy” and suggested human error was behind it. The driver was “very experienced”, he said, and had been on duty for only an hour, not working overtime; he would be questioned after treatment. Sala noted something that struck him as odd: a stop that had been skipped just before the crash.
Transport operator ATM said it was “deeply shaken” and sent its thoughts to the victims and their families. The three-car tram was one of a new bidirectional type introduced only weeks earlier. The city, packed with visitors for Milan Fashion Week, has just hosted the Winter Olympics and is preparing for the Paralympics.
Sources
- Tram derailment in Milan kills 2, injuries dozens-Xinhua
- Tram derails in Milan, leaving two dead and dozens injured
