The crash of Itavia Flight 870 in 1980 is one of the worst crashes in Italian history, and one of the most enduring and controversial air disasters - next to MH 370 and TWA 800. The Italian DC-9 disintegrated over the Mediterranean, during a flight from Bologna to Palermo. All 81 on board were killed. After the crash, investigators determined that the crash was the result of an explosion - not a mechanical failure onboard the DC-9. The cause of the explosion was not established, and remains controversial to this day.
In 1980, the Mediterranean was a virtual warzone. Libya was a rouge, violently anti-Western state lead by an eccentric leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Indeed, the year after the crash, American and Libyan jets clashed over the Mediterranean. Italian journalists speculated that Itavia 870 was caught in the crossfire in a dogfight between Libyan and Western jets, or was mistaken for Gaddafi's jet, and Itavia 870 was shot down in an assassination attempt. The evening of the crash, an investigative journalist (Andrea Purgatori) received a tip that the jet was shot down.
After the crash it was alleged that Italy, relatively friendly with Libya, allowed Libyan aircraft to fly close behind Italian domestic aircraft, to escape detection. On the night that Itavia 870 crashed, Gaddafi himself was planning to fly, back to Libya. He was warned of an assassination attempt, and did not fly - Itavia 870 was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Alternatively, Itavia 870 was caught in a dogfight, again caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Weeks after the crash, a Libyan jet was found crashed in southern Italy - confirmation of skirmishes between Libyan and NATO jets. There was also widespread allegations of a cover-up. Several military figures ended up dead in the years after the crash, and there were allegations that NATO conducted a cover-up. So, fuel for the conspiracy fire.
Pressure drove the Italian government to salvage more of the wreckage, and a commission was set up. This commission - on the basis of more recovered wreckage and radar analysis, found that Itavia 870 was shot down, by a missile from a fighter jet. However, several investigators dissented from the report in the years after the crash - on the grounds that there simply wasn't enough evidence.
The 1980s were a turbulent time in Italy. Political violence was widespread, by both neo-Facists and far left groups. Weeks after the crash, the Bologna railway station is bombed, killing more then 80 people. A second theory - was Itavia 870 caught up in the political violence in Italy?
Finally, to settle the case once and for all, an international investigation team was set up, under a British investigator, Frank Taylor, a veteran investigator, who had investigated Pan Am 103. Nearly all of the aircraft was salvaged. On the basis of this evidence, Taylor concluded that the aircraft was bombed, not shot down. A section of the rear of the plane is not recovered - suggesting that a bomb placed in the rear lavatory brought the plane down. Taylor goes as far as placing a bomb in a DC-9 lavatory, showing that similar pieces of wreckage are produced. Taylor's report, is, however, never released by the Italian judiciary. In his own words:
We discovered quite clearly that somebody had planted a bomb there, but nobody on the legal side, it would appear, believed us and therefore, so far as we are aware, there has been no proper search for who did it, why they did it, or anything else. As an engineer and an investigator I cannot see why anybody would want to consider anything other than the truth.
Taylor's investigation - siding with a bomb theory was ignored by the Italian judiciary. In the years after the crash, the Italian judiciary orders the Italian government to pay compensation for shooting down the plane, and Italian President Francesco Cossiga claimed that the plane was shot down. Most people in Italy today believe it was shot down.
After the Libyan revolution, papers were released stating that the attack was a botched assassination attempt.
The crash of Itavia 870 is an enduring aviation mystery. Was the plane bombed or shot down? If the plane was shot down, why, and by who? If it was bombed, why, and by who?