2001 Linate Airport runway collision

Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 686, a McDonnell Douglas MD-87 airliner carrying 110 people bound for Copenhagen, Denmark, collided on take-off with a Cessna Citation CJ2 business jet carrying four people bound for Paris, France, on 8 October 2001 at Linate Airport in Milan, Italy. All 114 people on both aircraft were killed, as well as four people on the ground.

The subsequent investigation determined that the collision was caused by several nonfunctioning and nonconforming safety systems, standards, and procedures at the airport.

The second aircraft was a Cessna Citation 525-A. There were two German pilots aboard. The captain, 36-year-old Horst Königsmann, had approximately 5,000 total flight hours logged, of which roughly 2,400 were accumulated in the Citation. The first officer, 64-year-old Martin Schneider, had approximately 12,000 flight hours' experience, of which 2,000 hours were in the Citation.

Accident

The accident occurred in thick fog, with visibility reduced to less than . The Cessna Citation was instructed to taxi from the western apron along the northern taxiway (taxiway R5),

All occupants of the MD-87 were killed by blunt trauma from the impact with the hangar. 54 of them, mainly in the back of the aircraft, suffered severe burns, requiring their bodies to be identified using forensic dentistry or DNA records. This was subsequently confirmed by the investigations that followed.

Linate Airport was operating without a functioning ground radar system at the time, despite having had a new system approved on 30 March 1995. The previous system had been decommissioned on 29 November 1999, but the replacement had not been fully installed. The pardon law issued by the Italian Parliament on 29 July 2006 reduced all convictions by three years. On 7 July 2006, Fusco and Federico were acquitted by the Milan Appeals Court. The controller Zacchetti's sentence was reduced to three years. In addition three more people were sentenced for multiple manslaughter and negligent disaster: former ENAV director general Fabio Marzocca to four years and four months, and former SEA airports agency officials Antonio Cavanna and Lorenzo Grecchi each to three years and three months. On 20 February 2008 the Supreme Court of Cassation upheld the acquittal of Fusco and Federico and confirmed five convictions. (Initially, in late 2002, eleven officials and functionaries had been charged with manslaughter.)

The initial eight-year sentence for Zacchetti prompted outrage among air traffic controllers. His sentence has been questioned in aviation safety law commentary.

Victims

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;margin-left:1em"

! rowspan="2" style="width:24%;"|Nationality||colspan=2|SAS 686|| colspan="2" style="width:24%;"|Cessna|| rowspan="2" style="width:12%;"|Ground|| rowspan="2" style="width:12%;"|Total

|- style="background:#ccf;"

!width=12%|Passengers||width=12%|Crew||width=12%|Passengers||width=12%|Crew

|align="left"| Denmark || 16 || 3 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 19

|align="left"| Finland || 6 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 6

|align="left"| Germany|| 0 || 0 || 0 || 2 || 0 || 2

|align="left"| Italy || 58 || 0 || 2 || 0 || 4 || 64

|align="left"| Norway || 3 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 3

|align="left"| Romania || 1 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 1

|align="left"| South Africa || 1 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 1

|align="left"| Sweden || 17 || 3 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 20

|align="left"| United Kingdom || 2* || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0 || 2

!align="left"| Total || 104 || 6 || 2 || 2 || 4 || 118

|- style="background:#fff;"

|colspan=7 style="text-align: center;" | * One passenger listed as a Briton by SAS held United Kingdom and United States citizenships. Most of the victims were Italian and Scandinavian.

Four memorial services were held in honour of the SAS MD-87 victims. On 12 October 2001, three separate ceremonies were held, with one in Denmark, one in Norway, and one in Sweden. On 13 October, a fourth ceremony was held in Italy.

In March 2002, a forest containing 118 beech trees called Beech Forest (') was inaugurated as a memorial to the victims in the Forlanini Park near the airport. A sculpture by the Swedish artist Christer Bording donated by SAS, called Infinity Pain, was placed in the centre of the forest.

The disaster devastated the Swedish go-kart community as some of the country's most promising young drivers were on the flight after attending an event in Lonato. After the disaster, the Swedish national motorsports club started a memorial fund together with some of the relatives. The fund awards annual stipends to promising Swedish youth in go-kart.

Dramatization

In 2012 the accident was featured on the 11th season of the Discovery Channel Canada / National Geographic TV series Mayday, in an episode entitled "The Invisible Plane". The episode featured interviews with accident investigators, and a dramatization of the crash and investigation.

References

ANSV final report:

External links

National Agency for the Safety of Flight

URL: http://www.ansv.it/En/Detail.asp?ID=177--> Milano Linate, ground collision between Boeing MD-87, registration SE-DMA and Cessna 525-A, registration D-IEVX (Archive)
Final report (Archive)
URL: http://www.ansv.it/It/Detail.asp?ID=177--> Milano Linate, collisione a terra tra Boeing MD-87, marche SE-DMA e Cessna 525-A, marche D-IEVX (Archive) – the Italian version is the report of record.
Final report (Archive)
CVR Transcript (Archive)

Scandinavian Airlines

Regarding Scandinavian Airlines flight SK 686 (1)
Regarding Scandinavian Airlines flight SK 686 (2)
Statement on Accident SK 686 Routed Milan – Copenhagen (3)
Information about SK 686 Milan – Copenhagen Accident (4)
Passenger and Crew List Scandinavian Airlines Flight SK 686 (5)
Press Conference regarding flight SK 686 (6)
Information about SK 686 Milan – Copenhagen Accident (7)
SK686 Update: Nationality Distribution (8)
Memorial Service for the casualties in Milan (9)

Other

Cockpit Voice Recorder transcript and accident summary
Looking back at Linate