ANDY NATIVI / GENOA AND DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
A pilot's mistake, fog and lack of a surface movement radar system at Linate airport are blamed for the accident
A business jet which took the wrong taxiway at Milan Linate airport caused the disastrous runway collision with a Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) Boeing MD-87, killing all 110 people on board the airliner. The four people in the smaller aircraft and four more in a baggage handling building were also killed.
The Citation (D-IEVX) instead took the R6 taxiway to the south east, then called for clearance to proceed from the R5 hold when its was in fact at the R6 stop point. ATC cleared the aircraft to continue within seconds of clearing the MD-87 (SE-DMA) to take off on runway 36R.
The two aircraft collided on the runway intersection with R6 just as the MD-87 had begun to rotate for take-off. The SAS aircraft hit the Citation with its main gear and tail and fell back onto the runway having suffered serious damage as the Citation exploded. The wrecked airliner slid along the runway and impacted a building beyond it, slightly to the right.
Linate had been equipped with an Aerodrome Surveillance Monitoring Indicator, but it was deactivated in November 1999 as obsolete. New equipment, including radar and a Park Air Systems Nova 9000 Runway Incursion Monitoring and Conflict Alert System, had been delivered in 1995 but installation was not completed. Also the acoustic warning signals at the taxiway barriers and their back-up stop bar systems had been disconnected in 1999 and not reactivated.
Judicial and technical investigations are proceeding in parallel, as well as one by the transport ministry, with the technical report forecast to be published in a month. The flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders have been recovered from both aircraft.
Source: Flight International
