The supreme Court of Cassation on
Thursday rejected an appeal by the ministries for defence and
transport against an order for them to pay 265 million euros in
compensation to failed airline Itavia over the Ustica air
disaster.
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.
81 people died in the crash and the airline subsequently
went bankrupt.
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.
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".
The ministries had been found negligent for failing to
properly control and monitor the skies above Ustica.
In addition to rejecting the ministries' appeal, the supreme
court also upheld a petition in which the company asked for
additional compensation.
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