Air traffic controllers jailed for role in fatal crash
Three air traffic controllers were jailed today for their role in a crash between two aircraft at a fog bound Milan airport that killed 114 people.
An airport official was also jailed after all were convicted of multiple manslaughter. They were sentenced to prison terms of up to four years and four months. Three other employees of Italy’s air traffic control agency were acquitted.
The crash, in October 2001, occurred when an SAS airliner bound for Copenhagen and a corporate jet collided in the morning fog on the Linate tarmac.
The Milan airport’s ground radar was out of service at the time.
The collision killed 110 people in the jetliner, four in the Cessna business jet and four ground crew – making it Italy’s worst civil aviation disaster.
In a separate trial last year, an Italian court convicted four other defendants, including an air traffic controller and a former top aviation official, of multiple manslaughter and negligence, and jailed them for between 6 and a half and eight years.
