"Italian Court Sentences Four Over Milan Airport Crash"

Monday, March 14, 2005

Court Sentences Four Over Milan Airport Crash


MILAN, Italy (Reuters) - A Milan court has found four air traffic officials
guilty of manslaughter in connection with Italy's worst air disaster,
sentencing them to up to four years in jail for their roles in a crash which
killed 118 people.

Three other officials, all employees of Italian air traffic control
authority Enav, were acquitted Monday. 

This verdict comes almost a year after the end of the main court proceedings
into the October 8, 2001 crash, when the court sentenced four other
officials, including the airport's director and Enav's former chief
executive, to up to eight years in jail.

The defendants sentenced Monday - Enav director general Fabio Marzocca, the
head of the Enav flight assistance center, the regional Enav director and
the director responsible for air traffic services - were tried separately
for technical reasons. 

All 104 passengers and six crew on a Copenhagen-bound SAS plane were killed
when it collided with a private Cessna jet in thick fog on a runway at
Milan's Linate airport. 

The Cessna's two German pilots and two Italian passengers were killed in the
crash. Four airport workers died when the SAS plane plowed into the baggage
hangar. 

Investigators later uncovered a series of shortcomings at Linate, including
the lack of a ground radar system. 

A public prosecutors' report after the crash called the airport a "death
trap." Authorities have said the airport's safety has been upgraded since. 

Italian judges do not immediately disclose the motivations behind their
verdicts. After the April 2004 ruling, the judge said the accused had been
sentenced for failing to fully install a new ground radar or to bring in
stricter security rules and over poor communication between pilots and
control towers.


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