​​Foggy Runway

On October 8, 2001, a thick fog settled over Milan's Linate Airport. Visibility dropped at times to as little as 50 meters.

A brand-new Cessna 525A CitationJet CJ2, with only 28 hours of flight time, was preparing for a flight to Paris. On board were two pilots and two passengers.

The crew was instructed to taxi to the runway via northern taxiway R5. However, in the dense fog, the pilots failed to see the faded and unclear markings and mistakenly turned onto taxiway R6, which led directly to the middle of the active runway. The airport had no ground radar, and the runway incursion warning system was disabled. As a result, in such low visibility conditions, the controllers had no way of knowing where the aircraft had actually gone.

Meanwhile, at the start of the same runway, a McDonnell Douglas MD-87 operated by Scandinavian Airlines System was preparing for departure to Copenhagen. There were 110 people on board: 6 crew members and 104 passengers. Shortly after, the MD-87 crew was cleared for takeoff and began accelerating down the runway. The aircraft reached 270 km/h and had just started to lift off when the Cessna suddenly appeared in its path.

The collision was devastating. The business jet was completely destroyed. The MD-87 lost its right landing gear and right engine. The aircraft briefly became airborne, but quickly lost speed and crashed back onto the runway. It veered sharply to the left, skidded across the tarmac, and overran the runway. At around 200 km/h, it slammed into a baggage hangar, was completely destroyed, and caught fire.

For some time, air traffic controllers were unaware that a collision had occurred and failed to sound the alarm. As a result, firefighters arrived at the scene only 20 minutes later. Had they responded sooner, they might have saved the Cessna’s pilots, who eventually died from carbon monoxide poisoning after being trapped in the cockpit.

In total, 118 people lost their lives in the disaster: all 110 on board the MD-87, all 4 occupants of the Cessna 525A, and 4 people inside the baggage hangar.

The investigation found that the accident was caused by a combination of factors: dense fog, errors by both the controller and the business jet pilots, the lack of ground radar, poor runway markings that were not visible from the cockpit, the disabled runway incursion warning system, and other safety deficiencies.

The ground controller and several regulatory officials were sentenced to prison terms by the court.