Linate massacre, 20 years ago the most serious plane crash in Italy

Monday 8 October 2001. Milan wakes up shrouded in autumn fog and Linate becomes the scene of the most serious aerial tragedy ever to happen in Italy. The scene that presents itself to the first aid workers who arrived at the site of the disaster, at 8.20 am, is apocalyptic after the collision between a small touring Cessna and a Scandinavian airliner, a Md87 of the Sas company, which ends its run after the impact. against an airport hangar and catches fire. 118 people were killed in the accident: the four aboard the Cessna, 110 passengers and crew members of the Scandinavian plane and four SEA employees, baggage handling, who were working inside the hangar. The only survivor, the employee of the Sea Pasquale Padovano, is hospitalized in the severe burns department of the Niguarda hospital in Milan, will remain in a coma for four months. Today, after 108 surgeries, he still bears the marks of that disaster. The hypothesis of a terrorist attack has been set aside, while the rescuers are hoping to find some survivors, the first reports show that it was a human error. According to what some pilots say, and the investigating authorities later confirm, the Cessna from the parking lot of private flights takes, by mistake or to save time, a wrong connection positioning itself sideways with respect to the SAS plane that was taking off regularly. The MD87 lifts the wheels off the ground but fails to ‘detach’ just enough to avoid the Cessna and with the trolley hits the plane and then crashes into the hangar at the bottom of the runway. The reconstruction leaves no doubt. At 8.10 the German pilot of the small tourist plane receives from the control tower the indications on the route to follow for taxiing: “Cleared to taxi North for Alfa 5″, these are the indications that invite you to taxi north to stand A5. The pilot repeats ” Taxi North to Alfa 5 ” and giving power to the engines he slips into the fog ready to take off. But instead of going north, the German pilot heads south, along the R6 junction, right in the middle of the runway, without anyone noticing it. The twin-engine continues along the R6 junction with Stefano on board, in addition to the two German pilots. Romanello representative in Europe of Cessna and Luigi Fossati, president of the Star who wanted to buy the Cessna Cition II on which he instead lost his life. The airport is operating in ‘Lvp’, the low visibility procedure and the weather report delivered to the captain indicates vertical visibility in 100 meters and horizontal visibility in 250 meters. At the control tower the German driver confirms that he has reached the point ” Alfa 5 ” on the R5 junction, while in reality he is on the R6 junction: a fatal mistake. It turns out that Linate airport lacks ground radar, an instrument that could have allowed the accident to be avoided, and the first controversies break out while three investigations are launched: one from the National Agency for Flight Safety, one from the judiciary and one of the Ministry of Transport. A few hours after the plane crash, the task for family and friends of identifying the 56 Italian victims of the disaster begins, while for the Scandinavian ones the task will be longer. In the nearby military base, close to the Linate runways, the first bodies are composed while relatives are asked to bring any object that may be useful for identification: photos, x-rays but also toothbrushes, combs from which to extract the DNA . A few meters away, the officers’ club of the military base is transformed into a gathering point for family members. Among the victims are Simone and Viviana: they got married on Saturday 6 October, they had decided not to leave for Egypt, the initial destination of their honeymoon, because it was too dangerous, and instead they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Renato Cairo, president of Eurojet, an aircraft rental company, which actually had to leave the night before. Transport Minister Pietro Lunardi arrives at the scene of the disaster who, excluding any terrorist implication – 11 September is too close a date not to think of a possible attack -, attributes the cause of the disaster to human error. “The control tower called Scandinavian flight Sk686 three, four times while I was behind them, ready to take off but there was no answer from the radio”, says the pilot to the yoke of a Gulfstream G4, the last to have seen intact the MD87 of the Sas. “I did not see the clash due to the fog – he adds – but we immediately realized that there was something strange. We saw the Scandinavian flight moving away in front of us. We did not see it rise, however, the altimeter indicating its position it remained at zero. After a few minutes the tower ordered us to return to the waiting area “. 15 seconds have elapsed for the passengers of the MD87 from the impact with the Cessna to death. This is the time calculated by the experts who collaborate with the judiciary on the Linate accident. From the first study of the debris and ruts traced on the asphalt, in the days following the tragedy, the sequence of the disaster is further clarified: the MD87 is traveling the main runway, 36R towards the north and is speeding at almost 270 kilometers per hour with a full tank of fuel. The outline of the Cessna suddenly appears and a second delay in taking off clearance would have been enough to avoid the accident. The Citation II, which has been out of the factory two weeks ago, has already crossed most of the track when the MD87 hits the Cessna’s right engine with its right landing gear, causing it to turn around 180 degrees. The nose of the small plane is thrown to the south, the left engine to the north and a little further ahead the right one, split in two by the impact with the other landing gear. The Sas flight Sk686 seems to withstand, on first examination, the explosion that took place under its stern but suffers serious damage. It loses the right engine and the wheels of the left carriage. However, it continues to rise, covering 92 meters per second. From the data of the black box it seems that the two pilots have attempted an emergency maneuver. The MD87 then crawls with its nose on the last meters of the runway and crashes into the hangar a few hundred meters from a taxi stand. Linate was the worst air disaster in Italian history. The numbers are impressive: 104 passengers on the SAS flight, 6 crew members, 2 passengers on the Cessna aircraft, 4 airport workers. At the base of the accident there is not only the error of the Cessna pilot, but a sum of airport malfunctions. The trial that began in 2002 (the first preliminary hearing was held on November 20, 2002) ends in about six years: on February 20, 2008, the Supreme Court confirmed the appeal sentence, making the two acquittals of the former Enac executives final and confirming 5 sentences. The fourth criminal section chaired by Mariano Battisti confirms the acquittal of Vincenzo Federico, former director of the Milan airports area and Francesco Fusco, director of Linate airport. Instead, the sentences for Sandro Gualano (6 years and 6 months), former CEO of ENAV, and for the radar man Paolo Zacchetti (3 years) become final. Who risks more with the decision of Piazza Cavour is Fabio Marzocca, former general manager of ENAV who has negotiated on appeal for 4 years and 4 months and will ask for the services to be entrusted. Confirmed 3 years of imprisonment for Antonio Cavanna and Lorenzo Grecchi, respectively former head of development and maintenance of the Sea and manager of airport resources. The Supreme Court thus puts an end to the massacre that took place on October 8, 2001, but not to the pain for those 118 dead.