Pensieri-sentimenti
ARTICLES
Year after crash claimed 118 lives in Milan, families still wonder how it could have happened Associated Press Writer MILAN, Italy (AP)
To a world still reeling from Sept. 11, the fiery collision of an airliner and a small jet at Milan´s airport looked at first like a terrorist attack. But the flames were barely extinguished and the 118 bodies extracted from the wreckage when it became apparent that Italy´s worst civil-aviation disaster wasn´t the result of a suicide strike -- but a horrifying combination of human error, weather and other factors.
On Tuesday, the first anniversary of the crash, traffic at Linate airport came to a standstill for a few minutes as relatives of the victims laid white roses on the tarmac while a bugler played "Taps." "It´s very painful," said Josh King, whose younger sister, Jessica, from the Los Angeles area, was killed in the crash. "It was so easily preventable." Among those present was an Italian baggage handler, brought by ambulance from the hospital where he is still recovering from severe burns suffered in the disaster on Oct. 8, 2001.
On that foggy fall morning, a Cessna business jet taxied down a wrong path and onto the runway of a Scandinavian Airlines System MD-87 jetliner accelerating for takeoff. The two aircraft collided, and the jetliner swerved into a baggage-handling hangar, shearing through two concrete pillars and triggering the collapse of the hangar´s roof.
All 104 passengers and six crew aboard the SAS jet bound for Copenhagen, four ground workers and the four people on the Cessna perished. The dead included Italians, Swedes, Danes, Finns, Norwegians, a Romanian, a Briton, a South African and King, who had U.S.-British citizenship.
In July, Italy´s national air safety agency issued a report saying many things went wrong besides the Cessna´s wrong turn. Miscommunication between the Cessna´s pilot and Linate´s control-tower was one error, said Cmdr. Adalberto Pellegrino, an official of the agency. "The communication was in English and Italian," as opposed to aviation standards that only English be spoken, Pellegrino said Monday. And, despite the poor visibility, control tower operators failed to ask the Cessna to read back his instructions to make sure they were understood. Fog at the airport, where the ground radar had been taken out of operation while a new system was to be installed, aggravated the situation. Confusing signs on the runway also were cited. "It wasn´t just the signs or some other factor, but a combination of factors," said Milan Prosecutor Giuliano Turone, whose office has asked for the indictment of 11 people on charges of manslaughter and causing a disaster through "grave negligence." Among the 11 are control tower personnel as well as officials from the company that runs Milan´s Linate and Malpensa airports, the national agency for air traffic control and the national agency for civil aviation.
A hearing on the indictment request is expected next month.
After an outcry over the lack of functioning ground radar, the system went into operation a few months after the crash. But little else has been done, despite the safety agency´s findings in July and a parliamentary commission´s call for an overhaul of Italy´s myriad of air-transport agencies which sometimes have overlapping jurisdictions.
The head of the company that runs Linate and Malpensa airports, Giorgio Fossa, recently called the crash "absurd" and "avoidable." "All that needed to be done that morning was that all the required safety rules be respected," Fossa said in an interview with the Milan daily Corriere della Sera. Josh King, who now lives in Milan, said the death of his sister, a linguist with a budding career in hotel management in Copenhagen and a fiance in Milan, has been especially hard on their father. On the eve of the anniversary, Jack King stroked a button he had made out of a photo of the smiling face of his daughter. "Jessica died halfway across the world in a place he´d never been to for reasons we don´t understand," said Josh King, who has been demanding accountability for those responsible.
FROM REUTERS
Still no one guilty a year after Italy "death trap"
By Nelson Graves MILAN, Oct 6 (Reuters)
A year after his sister died in Italy´s worst aviation disaster, Joshua King seethes with anger. "Nobody has been held responsible," said King, whose 31-year-old sister Jessica was the only American among the 118 victims of the runway collision. "It´s disgusting." A chilling chain of errors at Milan´s fog-bound Linate airport on October 8, 2001 led a private Cessna jet onto the runway and into the path of a Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) passenger plane as its front wheels lifted for takeoff. It was the world´s second deadliest runway collision after a 1977 disaster in the Canary Islands in which 583 died.
Relatives of the Linate victims express frustration and pain at the bureaucratic tangle they say fostered neglect and which some fear will long shield those responsible from blame.
Even the head of Linate operator SEA is irritated over the split in aviation responsibilities he says leads to dangerous buck-passing. "It´s a scandal," he told the Corriere della Sera newspaper last week. "Nothing has changed." In July, the public prosecutor recommended that 11 people be charged with crimes including multiple involuntary manslaughter. Among the 11 were the former head of air traffic control authority ENAV, the director of Linate airport, as well as the Milan head of civil aviation authority ENAC and two officials of the SEA airport operator.
The trial is set to start on Nov 20. "DEATH TRAP" At 8:10 a.m. on October 8, 2001, with ground visibility about 50 metres (yards) due to fog, the SAS MD-87 "Lage Viking" ploughed into the Cessna CitationJet 525A three seconds after the passenger jet´s front wheels had lifted off. SAS flight 686 rammed into a baggage hangar where it broke into three sections and its 10 tonnes of fuel burst into flames.
All 104 passengers and six crew on the Copenhagen-bound SAS flight died. The two German pilots of the Cessna and their two Italian passengers died, as did four people in the hangar. A report by the Milan public prosecutor said on the day of the crash "serious latent risks" at Linate posed a "death trap". It cited fog, non-conforming taxiway lights and signs, conflicting maps, lack of ground radar and the absence of an alarm system to warn the Cessna when it entered the runway.
The Cessna pilots were not qualified to take off in such fog. Local authorities say they have taken steps to address the litany of shortcomings uncovered by investigators. A ground radar system, out of service for months before the collision and which if working might have saved the day, has been activated -- days before the anniversary of the disaster. Lights and signs along taxiways have been upgraded, and maps which gave conflicting information have been redrawn.
But the National Air Safety Agency gives Linate -- on the edge of Italy´s financial capital -- mixed grades. "Things haven´t got worse," spokesman Adalberto Pellegrino said. "But I wouldn´t say they´ve got drastically better." One senior aviation official was forced to resign after the incident without assuming any responsibility. Otherwise, according to a foreign consultant who has investigated the disaster, agencies have sought to dodge blame. The foreign consultant, who asked not to be identified, said safety standards at Linate and in Italy remained a problem. "Certainly flying in Italy is usually a higher risk than flying elsewhere," he said, ranking Italy in the bottom third of EU nations for air safety. ENAC President Alfredo Roma says Italy´s safety standards have improved. "But it could be even better," he told Reuters. At 8:10 a.m. on Tuesday, victims´ families will gather on the Linate runway for a minute of silence in remembrance.
ASSOCIATED PRESS AND REUTERS - 01/02/2003
