A. Frank Taylor Cranfield University – Now Visiting Fellow

A case history involving Sea off the coast of Italy and near to the island of Ustica at approximately 1900 hrs wreckage analysis GMT while flying from Bologna to Palermo. Most of the wreckage sank to a depth of The following paper was presented by some 3500 metres and all 81 on board died. invitation to a conference in Rome during Floating debris and 38 bodies were recovered October 1998 but now includes pictures during the following few days from an area of from the presentation and a few several hundred square kilometres. Very additional explanatory notes. The soon there were suggestions that the DC-9 conference and paper had two main had been shot down by a missile and this objectives, to clarify issues relating to the view has been expressed strongly by many Ustica DC9 accident and to reiterate the people ever since. point that Italy should have an independent air accident investigation Newspaper reports in the USA and the UK as authority as called for by ICAO the EU well as in Italy have regularly implicated the (which it now has). Italian Air Force, the US Navy, the Libyans, the Israelis, the Russians, in fact practically everybody. There have been several TV Lessons from the Ustica programmes, at least one film and several investigations books, most it is believed ‘proving’ a missile theory but not necessarily the same one! A. Frank Taylor Cranfield University – now Visiting Fellow 1 Introduction This is an account by an outsider who for many years knew of the accident but not of the controversy surrounding it. The background information picked up after There has been much misinformation becoming involved, as presented below, is no circulated and many accusations of ‘cover- doubt incomplete and may in some cases be up’. In Italy ‘Ustica’ is still a cause célèbre. incorrect but is included to give an idea of At the end of 1997 one of Italy’s more what an open minded investigator has felt to important newspapers stated that 30 fighters be of interest. However it is not the were in the vicinity at the time, all with their background that is really important, it is the transponders intentionally shut off to avoid lessons to be learned from the wreckage. being identified; so far as is known there is Since even a ‘domestic’ accident has absolutely no evidence to support the claim international implications this account has but this appears to be typical of the long been written with a wider audience in mind, series of such claims made over the years which should explain the lengthy since 1980. introduction, unnecessary in Italy! Over recent years internet web sites have appeared, some on general air safety matters but at least one devoted purely to the Ustica accident, the latter and almost all the others have supported the various missile theories, thus the disinterested observer may well wonder why the ‘mystery’ has still not been An Itavia DC9 showing logo and colour scheme resolved. This paper seeks to shed some On 27 June 1980 the DC-9 aircraft I-TIGI light on the mystery, to demonstrate that the owned by Itavia crashed into The Tyrrhenian key to the investigation lay in the wreckage which, at the time all speculation started, was 1 still some 3500 metres beneath the surface of the causes of the air crash and the means to the sea and to point out a few lessons learned effect it’. The unusual aspect for the non- from the Ustica investigations. Italians was that our report would form part of a Public Prosecution case against various 2 The investigations named and unnamed people, principally Italian Air Force officers, for causing the The evidence available during the first few accident and/or withholding evidence. years after the accident was confined to floating bodies, seat cushions containing a As is usual with Italian investigations the considerable number of fragments, radar majority of the members had relatively little recordings and a variety of pieces of prior experience of accidents investigation circumstantial evidence. As none of this was although all were respected and experienced conclusive various Commissions failed to ‘experts’ in their own fields. Before very agree except that the aircraft probably did long this situation will change since Italy, break up in flight and the cause of this was along with many other European countries, either a missile or an internal explosion. will follow a European Directive and have its own new Accidents Investigation Agency, In 1990, despite the recovery of a fair independent of the judiciary and of all other amount of wreckage from the sea bed during aviation agencies. 1987-1988, found in three distinct areas and thus providing still more evidence of an in- 2.1 The situation prior to 1990 flight break-up, the ‘Blasi Commission’, named after the Judge who was in charge of The most widespread theory was, as has the enquiry, split and was also unable to already been suggested, that the DC-9 was decide whether the 'cause' was a missile or an hit by a missile fired by some unknown internal explosion. fighter aircraft. Although there have been several different variations upon this theme As a result a further Technical Commission, perhaps the most coherent was presented in this one under the Tribunale di Roma was 1982 on a BBC Panorama programme. As established in September 1990. This, the fifth the wreckage recovered by the Blasi Commission over all, was the first to be Commission during 1987/88 provided no ‘international’, having two from the UK hard evidence to effect this view the (including the author), two from Sweden and Panorama programme continued to provide one from Germany joining five from Italy and an apparently logical argument for a serving under another Judge, Dr Rosario deliberate missile attack on the DC-9. The Priore. A second German, with specialist argument may be summarised something like knowledge of missiles, was added to the team this: in 1993. xThe bodies recovered showed no At the very beginning of the Priore extreme injuries so the impact with investigation, in the autumn of 1990, it was the sea was at low velocity. stated that: ‘The experts will examine all judicial records, documents, exhibits already xThe radar records showed another found and to be found and will make every aircraft flying towards the starboard necessary investigation in order to ascertain side of the DC-9 from the west, out of the sun. 2 xAt least two metal fragments found in seat cushions showed evidence of an explosion. xSplinters of window plastic and rivets from the fuselage skin also found in the cushions showed that the explosion was outside the aircraft and not inside. xThe DC-9 had therefore been hit by a Fragment showing hot gas wash & rolled edges – missile and had subsequently spiralled typical of damage by an explosion slowly down into the sea. As this paper unfolds information, comment xOther fragments identified as being particularly relevant to the above hypotheses from the front of the cabin were and more general lessons to note, will appear found embedded in parts from further in bold italic type. back. 2.2 Early stages of the Priore Commission xThe missile therefore exploded near One of this Commission’s first decisions was the front of the cabin on the starboard that it could not proceed far while having side, driving these fragments back only the wreckage already available, it down the cabin. therefore immediately called for the recovery of more wreckage but of course this took 6 As the missile went towards the front some time to organise. of the aircraft and not to the rear, where the engines are located, it was not a heat seeking missile but a radar controlled one. xThe pilot of an aircraft approaching as shown by the radar returns and having released a missile that would lock onto the DC-9 would have had time to recognise that an error had been made and could have switched off the missile guidance system. Wreckage recovered by the Blasi Commission xAs this was not done then the missile 2.2.1 The wreckage attack was deliberate and not accidental. In the meantime some progress became possible as the wreckage already available The programme might well have added that: was laid out and studied. From many areas of interest certain points stood out: xAs the material of the metal fragments showing evidence of an explosion did xThe relative positions of the engines, of not appear to match any of those used the fuselage pieces and wings, and of the in the DC-9 then they must have tailcone and tailplanes, in recovery Zones come from elsewhere, this could only B, C and A respectively, not only fitted have been from a missile. the expected locus of debris expected 3 from an in-flight beak-up but also gave the approximate position of the break-up. Port engine intake xThere were red paint marks on and slight damage to the tailplane, also consistent The three recovery Zones with this being hit by pieces from the fuselage side. xThis position was sufficiently far to the 2.2.2 The bodies east of the break-up point shown by radar as to suggest that there was first a partial Photographs of the 38 bodies found floating break-up, followed by an ‘S’ shaped flight on the sea surface shortly after the accident path and a second, main break-up with showed few with major injuries and most much of the wreckage falling into the with no external injuries at all.

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