Alitalia flight 1553
| Alitalia flight 1553 | |
|---|---|
_AN0155602.jpg) An identical Minerva Airlines machine in Alitalia livery |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Agreement from the runway |
| place |
Ligurian Sea , near Genoa Airport , Italy
|
| date | February 25, 1999 |
| Fatalities | 4th |
| Survivors | 27 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
 Dornier 328-110
|
| operator |
Minerva Airlines for Alitalia
|
| Mark |
D-CPRR
|
| Departure airport |
Cagliari Airport , Italy
|
| Destination airport |
Genoa Airport , Italy
|
| Passengers | 27 |
| crew | 4th |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On the Alitalia flight 1553 (flight number AZ1553 ) was killed on 25 February 1999 on behalf of Alitalia operated Dornier 328-110 of Minerva Airlines with the German air vehicle registration D-CPRR upon landing at the airport of Genoa . In the accident, 4 out of 31 people were killed on board the machine. This is the only fatal incident involving a Dornier 328 (as of March 2020).
plane
The machine concerned was a Dornier 328-110 with the factory number 3054 , which was 3½ years old at the time of the accident. The aircraft was finally assembled at the Dornier works in Oberpfaffenhofen and received the test mark D-CDXV . The machine was then initially delivered to Deutsche Structured Finance Aircraft Leasing , which approved it with the aircraft registration D-CPRR and then passed it on to its leasing customer Minerva Airlines on July 16, 1996, in whose livery the Dornier was initially operated. After taking over flight operations for Alitalia Express , the aircraft was painted in the colors of Alitalia and flew in the name and using the flight numbers of the client. The twin- engine short - haul aircraft had two Pratt & Whitney PW119B turboprop engines , each with an output of 1,400 kW.
Passengers
The domestic scheduled flight AZ1553 from Cagliari in Sardinia to Genoa had taken 27 passengers. Among the passengers was an eight-strong Sardinian youth group of swimmers who were on their way to the Italian Junior Swimming Championships in Imperia .
crew
The four-person crew of the machine consisted of a flight captain, a first officer, a test captain and a flight attendant. The machine was controlled by the 37-year-old flight captain Alessandro del Bono. Del Bono had 6,000 hours of flight experience, of which he had completed 2000 in the cockpit of the Dornier 328. The flight attendant was the 25-year-old Alessandra Bugliolo.
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Flight history
The plane took off from Cagliari Airport at 11:15 a.m. local time. The flight went smoothly up to the start of the approach to Genoa. The pilots received clearance to land on runway 29 of Genoa airport, which is to be approached from east-southeast. The approach was carried out at 12:35 p.m.
the accident
During the approach, the aircraft approached with a tailwind at wind speeds of 18 knots and touched down very late. The Dornier lurched to the left over the end of runway 29 and collided with a 1.5 meter high wall in the Ligurian Sea behind the runway. Since the nose landing gear collapsed when it collided with the wall and damaged the interior of the landing gear shaft, the seawater penetrated through this area into the interior of the machine. The bow section of the Dornier then began to sink, as did the rest of the cabin. Only the tail unit remained afloat.
Rescue operation
The rescue workers reacted quickly to the incident: only 70 seconds after the accident, the airport fire brigade was at the scene of the accident. Diving teams from the fire brigade and the Carabinieri as well as other rescue teams from the coast guard , the port authority and the police were involved in the operation. Because of its final position in the sea at the boundary wall, the machine could only be reached by boats by rescue workers after four minutes, after which the survivors were brought ashore. It was thanks to the 15-year-old competitive swimmer Marco Sulis that not more people had died in the rapidly sinking machine. Sulis, who had familiarized himself with the safety instructions before departure, opened the only emergency exit used for evacuation after the impact, after another passenger had previously tried unsuccessfully to open it. The survivors swam out of the machine and waited on the wings of the machine for their rescue. Many of the inmates suffered in the waters of the Ligurian Sea , a hypothermia . The airport was closed for five hours after the accident.
Victim
A man from Alghero at the age of 35 and a woman from Guspini at the age of 61 as well as the flight attendant drowned in the water-filled wreck. A 55-year-old Australian manager died from injuries on the way to hospital. There were also 21 injured.
Cause and legal processing
The flight captain Alessandro del Bono was charged in connection with the accident. Del Bono was accused of having caused the accident through culpable acts, in this connection he was charged with multiple negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm. The public prosecutor's office demanded three years, six months and 20 days imprisonment. A witness summoned by the defense, the engineer Gianluigi Elia, confirmed that human error on the part of the pilot could not be the cause of the accident, but that the landing was rather perfect. The aircraft landed 450 meters before the end of the runway, which cannot be described as a late landing for a machine of this type, although gusts of wind had been reported at the time of landing. To counteract the gusts of wind, the pilot had increased the speed by 16 knots, an increase of up to 20 knots was legally permissible. The machine hit the ground at a speed of 132 knots.
According to Captain del Bono, the spoilers did not work on landing, so that the braking of the machine was inadequate. The court saw the collision with the boundary wall as the cause of the drowning of the four victims. According to the indictment, del Bono flew the machine at a higher landing speed than intended, did not correct the inclination of the aircraft and did not make a missed approach after discovering that the braking system was not working to its full extent. The pilot misused the spoilers after landing. According to the defense, the captain's decision not to make a missed approach was not only correct, but also mandatory, as no flight manual provides for this and this is viewed as dangerous for professional pilots.
The court found the captain's fault to be proven and sentenced del Bono in the first instance on November 14, 2001 to two years and eight months in prison and a payment of 1,600,000,000 Italian liras to the victims and their families.
In December 2002 the case was reopened. The defense, citing Alenia engineer Ivar Negrisin, argued that the levers for thrust reversal were blocked on the Dornier during landing. The engineer confirmed data that the defense del Bono was only able to present at the last hearing in the first instance. In the course of this, it became known that the Federal Aviation Administration had received a total of 22 reports of malfunctions of the thrust reverser lever between 1995 and 2001. The flood of reports only stopped after the manufacturer revised the system in early 2001. Negrisin explained that the thesis could not be substantiated because the aircraft was already dismantled at this point and such an event could take place without a trace. On January 25, 2003, the verdict of Captain Alessandro del Bono was upheld in the last instance, with the sentence reduced to two years. The thrust reverser was therefore actuated and activated on landing. Del Bono landed the machine on the runway at excessive speed and too late, so that he could no longer bring it to a stop on the remaining runway.
Honors
In connection with the incident, the Medaglia d'oro al valor civile , the highest award of the Italian Republic for civil courage, was awarded twice . The people who played a key role in the evacuation of the aircraft were honored for their actions - the competitive swimmer Marco Sulis and, posthumously, the late flight attendant Alessandra Bugliolo.
swell
- Accident report Dornier 328-110 D-CPRR . In: Aviation Safety Network . Retrieved on August 22, 2019.
- Carlo Ferraro: L'aereo atterra, va lungo: 4 morti , La Gazzetta dello Sport of February 26, 1999.
- #AccaddeOggi: 25 febbraio 1999, cade in mare un aereo partito da Cagliari , L'Unione Sarda on 25 February 2018.
- Sardegna come Genova, quando il nuoto può salvare vite on swimbiz.it
- Operating history of the machine on planespotters.net
- Italian plane overshoots runway , airdisasters.co.uk
- Nell'incidente morirono anche due donne di Guspini Genova: chiesti tre anni per il pilota del Dornier che è finito in mare , La Nuova Sardegna of November 8, 2001.
- Massimo Calandri: Condannato per i quattro morti , La Nuova Sardegna of November 14, 2001.
- Mauro Lissia: "Se c'è giustizia mi assolvono" I giudici confermano la condanna , La Nuova Sardegna of January 25, 2003.
- Mauro Lissia: Il Pg: «La sciagura del Dornier? Colpa del pilota, è un incapace » , La Nuova Sardegna from January 18, 2003.
- Mauro Lissia: "Il Dornier aveva un difetto al sistema frenante" Genova, il perito scagiona il pilota accusato della sciagura al Cristoforo Colombo , La Nuova Sardegna of December 13, 2002.
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 44 ° 24 ′ 48 " N , 8 ° 49 ′ 15.7" E