The failure to get to the bottom of
the 1980 Ustica plane crash continues to represent a "wound" for
Italians, President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella said on
the anniversary of the disaster on Tuesday.
"Full truth has not been established in the proper places, and
this still represents a wound for the sensitivity of citizens,"
said Matterella of the mysterious air disaster known in Italy
as the 'Ustica Massacre' (Strage di Ustica) that left 81 people
dead, and which has been the object of numerous investigations,
legal actions and accusations, including claims of conspiracy.
"The results obtained (so far) urge us not to give up, to search
for the missing pieces, to overcome the contradictions and thus
respond to the need for truth and justice," continued the head
of state.
On June 27, 1980, a Bologna-Palermo flight operated by the
now-defunct Itavia airline crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea
between the islands of Ponza and Ustica, killing all 81 people,
including 13 children, on board, in circumstances that remain
unclear.
"The Republic is close to the families of the victims and shares
their insurmountable grief," said Matterella, adding that when
the tragedy occurred "it was difficult to open up gaps to the
truth" also due to "lack of transparency and ambiguity".
"The commitment of the family members was invaluable. (It is) to
their tenacity and the professionalism of women and men of the
institutions (that) we owe the steps taken to disprove the
initial hypothesis of a structural failure of the aircraft and
reconstruct the dynamics of the events," continued the
president.
Hypotheses on the causes of what has been one of Italy's
enduring mysteries have included a terrorist bombing and a
missile strike during a military aerial dogfight, with a Libyan
plane possibly being the intended target.
In 2013 the Court of Cassation found that a missile fired from
an unknown source was the definite cause of the disaster, and
said that "cover-ups" in investigations into Itavia Flight 870
must now be considered "definitively
ascertained".
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