Linate Airport disaster
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The Linate Airport disaster occurred on October 8, 2001, at Linate Airport in Milan, Italy.
Scandinavian Airlines Flight 686, which used an MD-87 plane carrying 110 people, was headed to Copenhagen Airport, collided on take-off with a Cessna business jet carrying 4. There were no survivors. Wreckage was sent flying into a baggage-handling building, where an additional 4 people were killed, and 4 more were injured.
The accident occurred less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks and on the day after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began, which left many people thinking that the disaster was in fact a terrorist attack. This possibility was ruled out by the investigations that followed.
The accident occurred in thick fog. Investigations showed that the control tower's instructions to the Cessna had not been followed correctly, and the plane had erroneously moved onto the runway.
Linate Airport was operating without a functioning ground radar system at the time, despite having had a system delivered some years beforehand, which had not been fully installed. The new system finally came online a few months later.
On April 16 2004, a Milan court found four persons guilty for the disaster. Airport director Vincenzo Fusco and air-traffic controller Paolo Zacchetti were both sentenced to eight years in prison; six and a half years-long sentences were given to Sandro Gualano, former head of the air traffic controllers' agency, and Francesco Federico, former head of the airport.
See also
- Tenerife disaster
- Lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
External links
- [Agenzia Nazionale per la Sicurezza del Volo report]
- [Description of the accident at aviation-safety.net]
- [Looking back at Linate]
- [Italian TV report about the Linate Airport disaster] (season 2003-2004, episode of march, 18th, titled "4 minuti e 38 secondi")
- [Several photographs of this accident.]
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