Linate Airport disaster

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Linate Airport disaster

SAS Flight 686 after crashing into the hangar.
Summary
Date October 8, 2001
Type Runway collision
Site Linate Airport
Milan, Italy
Total injuries 4 (all on ground)
Total fatalities 118 (including 4 on ground)
First aircraft
Type McDonnell-Douglas MD-87
Name Lage Viking
Operator SAS
Tail number SE-DMA
Passengers 104
Crew 6
Survivors 0
Second aircraft
Type Cessna Citation II
Operator Private
Tail number D-IEVX
Passengers 2
Crew 2
Survivors 0

The Linate Airport disaster occurred on October 8, 2001, at Linate Airport in Milan, Italy.

Scandinavian Airlines Flight 686, an MD-87 plane carrying 110 people and headed to Copenhagen, Denmark, collided on take-off with a Cessna Citation II (registration D-IEVX) business jet carrying four, heading to Paris, France. There were no survivors. The MD-87 crashed into a baggage-handling building, where an additional four people were killed and four others were injured.

Contents

[edit] Nationalities of occupants

[edit] Passengers and crew of Scandinavian Airlines Flight 686

The final total of nationalities of passengers of the Scandinavian flight included: [1] [2]

Nationality Passengers Crew Total
Flag of Denmark Denmark 16 2 18
Flag of Finland Finland 6 1 7
Flag of Italy Italy 58 0 58
Flag of Norway Norway 3 0 3
Flag of Romania Romania 1 0 1
Flag of South Africa South Africa 1 0 1
Flag of Sweden Sweden 17 3 20
Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom 1 0 1
Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom and Flag of the United States United States 1 0 1
Total 104 6 110

By 9 October 2001, authorities concluded that the passengers were of the following nationalities: [3]

  • 56 Italians
  • 16 Danes
  • 2 foreigners living in Denmark
  • 30 others (unknown by 9 October)

The final nationality list is above.

[edit] Passengers and crew of the Cessna

[1]

Nationality Passengers Crew Total
Flag of Germany Germany 2 0 2
Flag of Italy Italy 0 2 2
Total 2 2 4

[edit] Accident

Reconstruction of the disaster (click to enlarge).
Reconstruction of the disaster (click to enlarge).

The accident occurred in thick fog, with visibility reduced to less than 200 m. Investigations showed that the control tower's instructions to the Cessna Citation had not been followed correctly, and the plane had erroneously moved onto the main runway. The two planes collided at 08:10AM, with the SAS MD-87 moving at about 270 km/h. All four in the Cessna were killed on impact. The MD-87 lost its right engine; the pilot, Joakim Gustafsson from Sweden, attempted to take off, reaching an altitude of approximately 12 m (35 ft). The remaining engine lost some thrust due to debris ingestion, and the plane, having lost the starboard landing gear, came down. Gustafsson applied thrust reverser and brakes, and tried to guide the plane through its control surfaces. The maneuver was judged so skillful that it is now incorporated into SAS technical manuals[citation needed]. All this was insufficient to halt the jet's momentum, and it crashed into a luggage hangar located near the runway's end, at a speed of 250.7 km/h. In the impact, all the MD-87's crew and passengers were killed. The crash and subsequent fire killed four Italian ground personnel [1] in the hangar, and injured four more.

Of the occupants of the SK aircraft, 54 (46%), mainly in the back of the aircraft, had severe burns. The other passengers still possessed facial features. The people in the front of the aircraft had severe blunt trauma. [1]

The following identification methods were used for the SK occupants: [1]

  • 42% of occupants - Visual (46 passengers)
  • 22% - Odontology (22 passengers)
  • 19% - DNA and Odontology (19 passengers)
  • 16% - DNA (16 passengers)
  • 1% - "Unique descriptors" (Such as tattoos, prosthetic devices) (1 passenger)

[edit] Causes

The accident occurred less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks and the day after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began, which left many people believing that the disaster was a terrorist attack. This possibility was ruled out by the investigations that followed.

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. Guidance signs along the taxiways were later found to not meet regulations; after mistakenly turning onto the R6 taxiway that led to the runway, there were no signs by which the Cessna pilots could recognize where they were. When they stopped at a taxiway stop-marking and correctly reported its identifier (S4), the ground controller disregarded this identification because it was not on his maps and was unknown to him. Furthermore, both pilots of D-IEVX were not certified for landings with visibility less than 550 m, but had landed at the airport anyway a few minutes before the disaster.

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. In the Second Grade process (July 7, 2006), Fusco and Federico were discharged. Another four people were sentenced. The pardon law issued by the Italian Parliament on July 29, 2006 reduced all convictions by three years. On 20 February 2007 the Corte di Cassazione upheld the decision of the Appeal Court.

[edit] Memorial

The Bosco dei Faggi.
The Bosco dei Faggi.

In March 2002 a forest containing 118 beeches called Bosco dei Faggi was inaugurated as a memorial to the victims in the Forlanini Park near the airport. A sculpture by the Swedish artist Christer Bording donated by SAS, called Infinity Pain, was placed in the centre of the forest. The disaster was a hard blow to the Swedish go-kart community as some of the country's most promising young drivers were on the flight after having attended an event in Milan. After the disaster, the Swedish national motorsports club started a memorial fund together with some of the relatives. The fund awards annual stipends to promising Swedish youth in go-kart[1].

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Schmitt, Aurore, Eugenia Cunha, and João Pinheiro. Forensic Anthropology And Medicine. Humana Press. 440
  2. ^ "British plane crash victims named," BBC
  3. ^ "Broken radar was factor in Italian crash," BBC

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 45.4484° N 9.2767° E