Twenty-six years ago, Itavia Airlines flight 870 took off from Bologna bound for Palermo with 81 passengers and crew aboard. An hour into the flight, it disappeared from the radar screens. The last message received from the pilot was a routine call to ground control, informing them that he was about to start his descent, followed by an exclamation of surprise that was abruptly cut short.
A few hours later, wreckage from the DC-9 was spotted in the Tyrhennian Sea off the island of Ustica, near Sicily. There were no survivors.