114 killed in Italy airplane collision

By Victor L. Simpson

Associated Press

MILAN, Italy – An SAS airliner taking off for Denmark hit a private jet that wandered across the runway, then careened into an airport building in a fiery crash that killed all 114 people on both planes today. It was Italy’s worst aviation disaster.

Four airport workers were missing and presumed dead after the crash at Milan’s Linate Airport.

The government ruled out terrorism and said the crash was likely caused by human error compounded by poor visibility due to heavy morning fog.

“It’s the worst day in our history,” SAS spokesman Troels Rasmussen said.

The collision occurred at 8:10 a.m. as the SAS MD-87 – bound for Copenhagen with 104 passengers, six crew members and full fuel tanks – was accelerating on Linate’s single runway.

A twin-engine Cessna jet, which was taking a potential buyer on a promotional flight, suddenly taxied onto the takeoff runway, said Alessandra Tripodi, a spokeswoman at the central government’s office in Milan.

The SAS airliner careened off the runway from the impact and plowed into a baggage handling depot, the Interior Ministry said.

“I thought a bomb in a suitcase had exploded and I ran,” Salvatore Reale, 59, a baggage handler, told reporters at Niguarda hospital, where he was treated for burns.

The Interior Ministry said the Cessna, a Citation II with four people aboard, crossed onto the takeoff runway by mistake after air traffic controllers told the pilot to taxi around it.

Italy’s second-largest pilots’ union said the accident could have been avoided if the ground radar, which can track aircraft on runways, had been activated.

All airlines that use Linate were told Oct. 1 that the radar wasn’t working. In such circumstances, the rule in low visibility is that all aircraft are prohibited from crossing the runway, said Osvaldo Gammino, head of a committee representing airlines at Linate.

Aircraft must instead circle around the runway, he said.

“In this incident, it looks like the Cessna crossed the runway, which suggests an error was made in terms of following the regulations. It is now up to the magistrate to determine who is at fault,” Gammino said.

The flight controllers’ association, ENAV, said it appeared the Cessna pilot, despite having confirmed the instruction from the traffic controller, incorrectly went onto a taxiway that opened up directly onto the runway.

Transport Minister Pietro Lunardi put the confirmed death toll at 114 – all 110 from the SAS flight and four from the Cessna. Tripodi said the four ground workers were also presumed dead.

Fifty-six of the SAS victims were Italians, 16 were Danes, four were Finns. The nationalities of the others were still being determined.

Until now, Italy’s worst aviation disaster was in 1972, when an Alitalia DC-8 crashed into a mountain near Palermo, Sicily, killing 115 people.

The Cessna was destroyed by the fire and collision. The two Cessna pilots were German, and the two passengers were Italian businessmen, Lunardi said.

One was Cessna’s European representative, Stefano Romanello, who was showing the aircraft in a promotional flight to a client, said Carlo Alberto Mori, an official at Cessna’s authorized Italian service center for Citation jets. That client was identified as Luca Fossati, the president of Star, an Italian food company, according to Paolo Conca, spokesman for Star’s public relations firm.

More than 75 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage by early evening after firefighters contained the blaze. Access to the fuselage and cabin of the jetliner was hampered because the roof collapsed after the plane hit a cement beam as it plowed into the baggage building.

The airport was closed until at least midnight.

Two of the injured people from the baggage depot were taken to Niguarda hospital, one with burns over 80 percent of the body and the other with 20 percent burns, said Tripodi. A third person was at San Raffaele hospital for x-rays, and a fourth was treated for shock and released, she said.

Pope John Paul II offered prayers for the victims and their families.

Stockholm-based SAS is jointly owned by Sweden, Denmark and Norway. It offered an initial $25,000 to the next-of-kin of each of its passengers and said two flights had been arranged to take relatives to Italy.

Bjorn Alegren, vice president of SAS for Europe, Middle East and Africa, was asked at an airport news conference in Milan if he could ruled out responsibility of the SAS pilot.

“All I can tell you is that our flight was cleared for takeoff,” he responded.

At Copenhagen’s airport, flags were at half-staff and relatives and friends of passengers were offered psychological counseling.