Draft:Itavia Flight 115

Itavia Flight 115

Wreckage of the aircraft
Accident
Date	October 14, 1960
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error
Site	La Tabella, Elba, Italy
Aircraft
A de Havilland Heron similar to the one involved
Aircraft type	de Havilland DH-114 Heron 2
Aircraft name	Città di Genova
Operator	Itavia
Registration	I-AOMU
Flight origin	Rome Urbe Airport, Rome, Italy
Destination	Genoa Airport, Genoa, Italy
Occupants	11
Passengers	7
Crew	4
Fatalities	11
Survivors	0

Itavia Flight 115 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight in Italy from Rome to Genoa. On October 14, 1960, the de Havilland DH.114, named Città di Genova, crashed into the slopes of Mount Capanne, Elba at 728 meters (2,388 feet) high, killing all 7 passengers and 4 crew members. It was the first fatal accident of Itavia.

Accident

At 15:02, the Heron left Rome Urbe Airport, planning to arrived to Genoa Airport at 16:30. At 15:19, Ennio Scipione, the pilot-in-command, contacted the city airport by radio to communicate that the plane was regularly flying over Civitavecchia. However, the weather conditions were particularly adverse and that it would be preferable to divert the aircraft to Turin or Nice. Delaying in arriving a response from Rome, the plane, while crossing through the ridge between La Grottaccia and Monte Cenno, struck the Mount Capanne.

Investigation

The most likely cause of the disaster was due to the impossibility, on the part of the pilot, to establish the exact position of the plane; to overcome the violent storm, not having realized that he was already on Elba island, he headed at a much lower altitude. ^[1] The pilot was discovered flying according to the visual flight reference (VFR) instead of instrument flight reference (IFR) as he should have based on the atmospheric conditions. It is found that he did not have the appropriate qualifications; moreover, he did not even hold the commercial pilot license necessary for airliner pilots. According to the investigation report, the accident was caused by the '...accidental falsified indication of the radio compass, due to the influence of a nembo heap, in conjunction with a sudden lack of external visibility.'^[2]

Discovery

Although three hunters, sheltered from the storm in a shed in the Piedmont valley, had clearly heard the roar of a plane descending rapidly, it was assumed that the plane had attempted to make a landing in Corsica with the impossibility of communicating its position due to the radio bridges precluded from bad weather. Difficult searches at sea were organized with the minesweeders Squalo and Sturgeon that left from La Spezia under strong winds, but already from the next day the relatives of the victims, almost all residents of Genoa, left for the island of Elba ^[3] and stayed temporarily at the Monte Capanne hotel in Poggio. The remains of the plane were accidentally discovered on the morning of Sunday, October 16 by Antonio Arnaldi from Pomonte, at the time thirty-seven years old, going in search of poles for the vineyard and mushrooms in the mountain bushes. Arnaldi, who had gone there on his horse with the donkey in tow, stopped near a goat and from there he caught a glimpse, about 150 meters away, of the white silhouette of a wing of the crashed plane, with the point of impact marked by a vast crater, upset boulders and shrubs burned by the fire that developed in the crash. The clock of a Japanese passenger, Naomichi Takashima, was 15:50. As the discoverer of the disaster, Antonio Arnaldi received a ministerial reward of 15,000 lire. At the same time, another discoverer of the disaster, the 62-year-old Marciana pastor Edoardo Ricci, reported the fact to the Carabinieri Command of Marciana. The praetor Antonio Perri, the mayor of Marciana and the Commander of the Carabinieri of Portoferraio also arrived at the scene of the accident.

Body return

The bodies of the victims, except the stewardess Giovanna Pertusio and the little Maria Pia Dalmau, were mutilated and partially charred by the flames released after the impact of the plane. Given the abundant rain at the time of the accident, the first responders found the bodies with no visible traces of blood; the pilot's hands, cut off at wrist height, were still gripping the control bar. The remains of the eleven bodies were transported on a donkey's back first to Pomonte and then, on a truck, to Marciana, where they were placed in coffins at the morgue; the twelfth box contained the unidentified remains. The doctors who operated the reconnaissance were Dr. Dino Vadi and Dr. Fausto Parlanti. The body of the passengers was transported to Genoa, while those of the crew to Rome; the Itavia company entirely financed the funeral, which took place on October 20 in the Cathedral of Genoa. ^[3]

Lawsuit

The criminal trial that was held later in Livorno against the airline and those responsible for Civil Aviation and Rome Urbe Airport ended with the acquittal of all both in the first (1965) and in the second instance (1966) of judgment. The defendants were General Romolo Abbriata (director of Civil Aviation), Luigi Petragnani (director of Itavia), Renato Panini (technical organizer of the same company) and Riccardo Rubbiano-Piva. The prosecution had sentenced 8 years in prison for Petragnani and Panini, 7 for Abbriata and 6 for Rubbiano-Piva. ^[4]

Looting

In the following years, the aluminum alloy fragments of the Città di Genova were taken in large numbers, for personal reuse purposes, by residents of Portoferraio.

Recovery of the aircraft

The surviving fragments of the Città di Genova were recovered by the Municipality of Marciana in May 2015. On the spot, as a testimony of the disaster, the four De Havilland Gipsy Queen engines and the lower portion of the front fuselage, 5 meters long, remained.

Victims

Memorial

1960

At the scene of the accident, a small white marble tombstone placed at the base of a rock formation, engraved with the star of David, recalls the passenger of Jewish origin Silvio Sciunnach.

References

External sources

• Taddei, Rinaldo (1965). In difesa del generale Romolo Abbriata. Il disastro aereo dell'isola d'Elba. Roma: rivista L'Eloquenza. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)Page Template:Modulo:Chiarimento/styles.css has no content.Taddei, Rinaldo (1965). In difesa del generale Romolo Abbriata. Il disastro aereo dell'isola d'Elba. Roma: rivista L'Eloquenza. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• Pedde, Nicola (2003). ITAVIA: storia della più discussa compagnia aerea italiana. Eliconie Editrice.
• Ferruzzi, Silvestre (2009). Il disastro aereo del 1960 (PDF). Portoferraio: rivista Lo Scoglio. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• DISASTRO AEREO «ITAVIA» DELL'ISOLA D'ELBA (1960) on YouTube