Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870

Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 (IH 870, AJ 421 ) was an Italian commercial flight operated by a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 which crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between Ponza and Ustica, killing all on board, while en route from Bologna, Italy to Palermo, Italy in 1980. Known in the Italian media as the Ustica Massacre ("Strage di Ustica") – Ustica being a small island near the crash-site – the disaster led to numerous investigations, legal actions, and accusations, and continues to be a source of speculation, including claims of conspiracy by the Italian government and others. Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga attributed the cause of the crash to a missile fired from a French Navy aircraft. On 23 January 2013 Italy’s top criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a missile. To date, this remains the deadliest aviation incident involving a DC-9-10/15 series.

Details of the flight
Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 was a commercial McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 delivered on 27 February 1972 with the serial number CN45724/22 and registration I-TIGI (Formerly N902H, operated by Hawaiian Airlines). A regularly scheduled transit from Guglielmo Marconi Airport in Bologna to Palermo International Airport in Palermo, Sicily, on 27 June 1980, it departed 2 hours behind its schedule at 20:08 CET (19:08 UTC). The flight was carrying 77 passengers, with two pilots and two flight attendants.

The aircraft crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea near the island of Ustica, about 130 km southwest of Naples, at 20:59 CET. All 81 people on board were killed.

Two Italian Air Force F-104s were scrambled at 21:00 CET from Grosseto Air Force Base to locate the accident area and to spot any survivors, but failed due to poor visibility. In July 2006 the re-assembled fragments of the DC-9 aircraft were returned to Bologna from Pratica di Mare Air Force Base near Rome.

Official investigation
After years of investigations, no official explanation or final report has been provided by the Italian government. In 1989 the Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism, headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino, issued an official statement concerning the disappearance of Flight 870, which thus became known as the "Ustica Massacre" (Strage di Ustica).

The definitive sentence asserted:
 * "(...) The DC9 incident occurred following a military interception action, the DC9 was shot down, the lives of 81 innocent citizens were destroyed by an action properly described as an act of war, real war undeclared, a covert international police action against our country, which violated its borders and rights. (...)"


 * "(...) L'incidente al DC9 è occorso a seguito di azione militare di intercettamento, il DC9 è stato abbattuto, è stata spezzata la vita a 81 cittadini innocenti con un'azione, che è stata propriamente atto di guerra, guerra di fatto e non dichiarata, operazione di polizia internazionale coperta contro il nostro Paese, di cui sono stati violati i confini e i diritti. (...)"

The perpetrators of the crime remain unidentified. The court, unable to proceed further, declared the case archived.

In June 2008, Rome prosecutors reopened the investigation into the crash after former Italian President Francesco Cossiga (who was Prime Minister when the incident occurred) said that the aircraft had been shot down by French warplanes.

On 7 July 2008 a claim for damages was served to the French President.

The "high treason" accusation against the Italian Air Force
The role of Italian Air Force personnel in the tragedy is unclear. Several of them have been investigated and brought to court for a number of offenses, including falsification of documents, perjury, abuse of office, and aiding and abetting. Four generals were charged with high treason, on the allegations that they obstructed government investigation of the accident by withholding information about air traffic at the time of Ustica disaster.

The first ruling, on 30 April 2004, pronounced two of the generals, Corrado Melillo and Zeno Tascio, not guilty of high treason. Lesser charges against a number of other military personnel were also dropped. The abuse of office charge was no longer valid, due to some changes in legislation, and the other allegations could not be pursued further due to the statute of limitations, as the events in question had occurred more than 15 years prior.

For this same reason, action could not be taken against the other two generals, Lamberto Bartolucci and Franco Ferri. However, the ruling did not acquit them, and they were still alleged to be guilty of treason. Dissatisfied, they appealed, and in 2005 the appeals court ruled that the accusations were made on insufficient grounds. On 10 January 2007, the Italian Court of Cassation upheld this ruling and conclusively closed the case, fully acquitting Bartolucci and Ferri of any wrongdoing.

In June 2010, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano urged all Italian authorities to cooperate in the investigation of the incident.

In September 2011 the Palermo civil tribunal ordered the Italian government to pay 100 million euros ($137 million) in civil damages to the relatives of the victims for failure to protect the flight and for concealing the truth and destroying evidence.

Finally, on 23 January 2013, Italy’s top criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a stray missile and confirming the lower court's order that the Italian government must pay compensation.

Theories
Speculation at the time and in the years since has been fueled in part by media reports, military officials statements, and ATC recordings, including radar images and trails of debris; particularly, trails of objects moving at high speeds.

A terrorist bomb
The technical commission supporting a 1990 judicial enquiry reported that an explosion in the rear toilet and not a missile strike was the only conclusion supported by the wreckage analysis.

Missile strike during military operation
Major sources in the Italian media have alleged over the years that the aircraft was shot down during a dog fight involving Libyan, United States, French and Italian Air Force fighters in an assassination attempt by NATO members on an important Libyan politician, maybe even the leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was flying in the same airspace that evening. This version was supported in particular by investigative magistrate Rosario Priore in 1999. Judge Priore said in his concluding report that his investigation had been deliberately obstructed by the Italian military and members of the secret service, in compliance with NATO requests. In April 1993, the General Yuri Salimov, the Russian intelligence services, revealed that he had followed the events of Ustica through a Russian radar based in Libya, through the use satellite was able to monitor the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, "I saw that U.S. missile strike in error the DC-9 ».

On 18 July 1980, 21 days after the crash, a Libyan MiG-23 crashed on the Sila Mountains in Castelsilano, Calabria, southern Italy, according to eye witnesses and official reports. Media rumors reported that the plane may actually only have been discovered at that time, and that the pilot's body was decomposed; this gave rise to allegations that the MiG-23 may have been shot down at the time of the Flight 870 incident.

According to the Italian media, documents from the archives of the Libyan secret service passed on to Human Rights Watch after the fall of Tripoli, show that Flight 870 and the Libyan MiG were attacked by two French jets.

Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky claimed on page 284 of his book The Other Side of Deception that "...every time Israel or the Mossad has been responsible for the downing of a plane, it's been an accident, and related directly to the so-called security of the state, like the shooting down of the Libyan plane over the Sinai and the Italian plane (thought to carry uranium) in 1980, killing eighty-one people". The term "Italian plane" clearly refers to Itavia Flight 870.

Conspiracy theories
There are conspiracy theories surrounding this event, based on the series of events that followed the air crash. For example, the vessel that carried out the search for debris on the ocean floor was French, but only US officials had access to the aircraft parts they found. Several radar reports were erased and several Italian generals were indicted 20 years later for obstruction of justice. The difficulty the investigators and the victims' relatives had in receiving complete, reliable information on the Ustica disaster has been popularly described as un muro di gomma (literally, a rubber wall), because investigations just seemed to "bounce back".

Some of the Italian Air Force officials who might have known about the disaster's background died suddenly.


 * 3 August 1980: Col. Pierangelo Teoldi, was nominated to become Commander of Grosseto AFB, but had not yet assumed command at the time of his death - car accident.
 * 9 May 1981: Maurizio Gari, Poggio Ballone air defense radar controller - heart attack at age 37.
 * 31 March 1987: Mario Alberto Dettori, Poggio Ballone air defence radar controller - suicide by hanging.
 * 28 August 1988: Mario Naldini and Ivo Nutarelli, Italian Air Force - the pilots who crossed Flight 870's path on 27 June over Tuscany - mid air collision during the 1988 Ramstein Air Show.
 * 1 February 1991: Antonio Muzio, Lamezia Terme control tower officer - murdered.
 * 2 February 1992: Antonio Pagliara, Otranto air defence radar controller - car accident.
 * 21 December 1995: Franco Parisi, Otranto air defense radar controller - suicide by hanging.

Memorial
In Bologna on 27 June 2007 the Museum for the Memory of Ustica was opened. The museum is in possession of parts of the plane, which are assembled and on display. Almost all of the external fuselage of the plane was reconstructed. In the museum there are also objects belonging to those on board that were found in the sea near the plane. Christian Boltanski was commissioned to produce a site specific installation. The installation consists of: Each loudspeaker describes a simple thought/worry (e.g. "when I arrive I will go to the sea") All the objects found are contained in a wooden box covered with a black plastic skin. A small book with the photos of all objects and various information is available to the visitor upon request.
 * 81 pulsing lamps hanging over the plane
 * 81 black mirrors
 * 81 loudspeakers (behind the mirrors)