More than 40 years have passed, but Italy is still waiting for definitive answers about a air disaster that killed 81 people on June 27, 1980.
The plane, a DC9 operated by the now-defunct airline Itavia and flying from Bologna to Palermo, crashed in the Tyrrhenian Sea, between the islands of Ponza and Ustica – the latter would end up forever associated with the tragedy.
“The Republic was deeply marked by that disaster, which remains an open wound, also because it lacks the full truth, and this contrasts with the need for justice that nourishes democratic life”, said President Sergio Mattarella on the 44th anniversary of the tragedy of Ustica.
“The Republic will not tire of continuing to search and also asks friendly countries for collaboration to fully reconstruct what happened,” he added.
The cause of the disaster was never clarified, but in October 2013, the Italian Supreme Court considered “consecrated” the thesis that a missile was responsible for the crash of the aircraft, possibly as part of a clash between Treaty Organization fighters. North Atlantic (NATO) and Libya – the wreckage of a Libyan fighter plane would be found a month later in the mountains of Calabria, southern Italy.
The case gained prominence again last year, when former prime minister Giuliano Amato said he believed that the DC9 had been brought down by a missile launched by France, in an attempt to assassinate the then Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.
After the statement, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni demanded evidence from Amato, while the French government assured that it had already provided all available information.
“We ask the government to make a strong commitment at the diplomatic level to ask friendly states, such as France, to reveal all the information in their possession”, said this Thursday Stefano Bonaccini, governor of Emilia-Romagna, from where DC9 departed on the day of disaster. (HANDLE)
