In the aftermath of a plane crash, investigators work to establish the cause(s). The outcomes of such research can help airlines and manufacturers learn from these tragedies, as well as providing closure to those who have lost loved ones. However, some crashes have remained unsolved, with one being Itavia flight 870.

The flight and aircraft in question

Itavia flight 870 originated at Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ) in northern Italy. The flight served a domestic route, with its destination being Falcone Borsellino Airport (PMO), which serves Palermo, Sicily. Today, it is a battleground for low-cost carriers, with Ryanair and Wizz Air competing for passengers.

On June 27th, 1980, the aircraft operating the flight was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 registered as I-TIGI. According to data from ATDB.aero, the rear-engined twinjet was 14 years old at the time, having entered service with Hawaiian Airlines in March 1966. Almost six years into its career, in February 1972, it joined Itavia.

The Aviation Safety Network reports that the flight had 77 passengers and four crew members onboard, giving a total occupancy of 81 people on the day in question. It departed from Bologna at 20:08 local time, which represented a delay of one hour and 53 minutes. Within half an hour, the flight had sent its last radio message.

Itavia DC-9
The 14-year-old aircraft had 81 people onboard. Photo: Lewis Grant via Wikimedia Commons

Tragedy over the Tyrrhenian Sea

The final contact in question took place at 20:37 local time, with the aircraft confirming its location 120 km (65 NM) to the southwest of Naples. At this point, it was flying at an altitude of 24,000 feet over the Tyrrhenian Sea, with the nearest landmass being the island of Ustica. Shortly afterward, an explosion occurred that caused the jet to break up in midair, with the wreckage falling into the sea.

Poor visibility initially hampered the search efforts of a pair of Italian Air Force Lockheed F-104 Starfighters, but floating wreckage and bodies soon emerged in the area where the plane was lost. Other components sank to a reported depth of around 3,500 meters. Sadly but not unsurprisingly, all 81 people onboard perished.

27 years after the disaster, in June 2007, a museum dedicated to the memory of the flight's victims opened in Bologna. This occurred just after the salvaged wreckage was returned to the city by the Italian Air Force, who had previously been storing it near Rome. As seen in the photograph below, the museum features a display including much of the DC-9's fuselage, as well as art installations.

GettyImages-1252744464 Itavia DC-9 Wreckage Museum
The museum is lit by 81 lamps in memory of the disaster's 81 victims. Photo: Getty Images

Stay informed: Sign up for our daily and weekly aviation news digests.

The cause remains contested

It has now been more than four decades since the splintered wreckage of Itavia flight 870 fell into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Despite so much time having passed, a concrete cause for the tragedy is yet to have been pinpointed. For example, while a technical commission concluded that a bomb planted in the rear bathroom brought the plane down, other tests found no explosive residue among the wreckage.

Another theory that has been applied to the tragedy is that the aircraft was shot down amid a military dogfight in the area through which Itavia flight 870 was passing through at the time of the crash. Specifically, parts of the Italian media hypothesized that it was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time amid an assassination attempt on a Libyan politician also flying in the airspace in question.

What do you make of this disaster? Do you remember it happening at the time? Let us know your thoughts and recollections in the comments.

Source: Aviation Safety Network