Prosecutors on Monday called for eight-year prison sentences for three aviation officials charged with manslaughter for Italy’s worst air crash which killed 118 people in 2001.
The men are on trial for what prosecutors have said was a string of errors that led an SAS passenger jet to plough into a private Cessna plane as it was taking off in thick fog at Milan’s Linate Airport on October 8, 2001.
The defendants, including Sandro Gualano, former chief executive of air traffic control authority Enav, and Vincenzo Fusco, director of Linate Airport, have denied the charges.
Prosecutor Celestina Gravina asked for a sentence of three years and 10 months for a fourth defendant, air traffic controller Paolo Zacchetti.
A verdict in the case is due on March 29.
The four defendants are part of a larger group of 11 who have been accused of negligence in the air disaster which uncovered several safety shortcomings at the airport including the lack of a working ground radar system.
A public prosecutors’ report after the crash said “serious latent risks” at the airport posed a “death trap”.
Authorities have said the airport’s safety has been upgraded in a number of ways since and that the ground radar now works.
By: steve rowell - 10th March 2004 at 09:38
As in most air disasters there is always a set of mitigating circumstances
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March 9, 2004 at 8:26 am