Silvio Berlusconi’s plane makes emergency landing after crack in cockpit window

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Milan's Linate Airport after a crack formed in a cockpit window.

The incident occurred at 8:40 a.m. today as the Brussels- bound aircraft, which had taken off in Rome, flew over the Swiss city of Zurich, according to a spokesman for the premier. He said the plane was an Airbus but declined to name the model, Bloomberg says.

Berlusconi's spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, said that after the plane landed at Linate, the premier and his aides boarded another aircraft for Brussels.

Overshadowing the Brussels meeting was clash of reactions across the continent provoked by France's crackdown on Gypsies.

Berlusconi's conservative government has rallied to the side of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's expulsion of Roma, while the European Union's justice commissioner is sticking to a threat to challenge France in court over the policy, The Associated Press reports.