The ministries for defence and
transport must compensate failed airline Itavia for their
"failure to control and monitor the complex situation that
emerged in the skies above Ustica", the Court of Cassation,
Italy's highest court, ruled on Tuesday.
The Court of Cassation rejected an appeal by the two
ministries against an appeals court ruling awarding compensation
to Itavia to the tune of 265 million euros.
The airline operated the DC-9 that crashed into the sea near
the Sicilian island during a flight from Bologna to Palermo on
June 27, 1980, as a result of an "outside explosion due to a
missile launched by another plane".
81 people died in the crash, and the airline subsequently
went bankrupt following a denigratory campaign.
Now the supreme court must decide if the compensation awarded
on appeal is sufficient or too much.
The Ustica crash has been one of Italy's enduring mysteries,
with some suggesting that the plane got caught in the crossfire
of a military aerial dogfight and that a Libyan plane could have
been the intended target.
NATO officials have denied any military activity in the area
that night.
The Court of Cassation found in 2013 that a missile fired
from an unknown source was the definite cause of the passengers'
deaths, and said that ''cover-ups'' in investigations into
Itavia Flight 870 must now be considered ''definitively
ascertained''.
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