Man jumped out of plane to avoid illness

A Westerner who died when he jumped out of a plane over the Gulf of Thailand was an Italian pilot who apparently committed suicide to avoid suffering the final stages of leukaemia, police said today.

The body of Andrea Petersek, 45, was found Monday about three miles off the coast of Pattaya, a well-known resort town. Two days earlier he mysteriously kicked out the door of a rented two-seater plane and plunged to his death.