"Airport staff face crash charges in Italy"

Friday, June 28, 2002

Airport staff face crash charges
Debris on the Milan Linate runway    
Cable News Network (CNN)


MILAN, Italy -- Eleven people, mostly air traffic controllers, face
manslaughter charges for a runway accident in which 118 people died. 

The 11 have been at the centre of an investigation into the cause of
Italy's worst civil aviation disaster. 

All the passengers and crew of two planes died when they collided on a
runway at Milan's Linate airport last October. Four ground staff were
also killed when an SAS jumbo jet careered into a hanger following the
collision with a private jet. 

Of an original 20 or so people placed under investigation, 11 remained
on the prosecutors' list, prosecutor Giuliano Turone told The Associated
Press on Friday. 

Prosecutors will ask a judge to charge those 11 with manslaughter and
other indictments. 

Most of the 11 are officials or former officials with ENAV, the national
air traffic controllers' association, as well as Linate airport
officials. 

Excluded from the list was Giorgio Fossa, the president of the company
that runs the airport. 

The SAS aircraft had veered off the runway as it was taking off after
hitting the Cessna, which had crossed into its path. The Cessna had been
on the wrong runway at the time. 

Investigators said the crash was caused by human error compounded by
poor visibility due to heavy fog. 

But some claimed the ground radar, out of service for months while a new
system was being installed, might have prevented the catastrophe. 

Ground radar has since been reinstalled at the airport.


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