Crashes In Fog While On Landing Approach

Uganda Airlines Jet 

ByMARY BETH SHERIDAN October 17, 1988, AP

ROME (AP) _ A Uganda Airlines jet with 52 people aboard crashed, broke into pieces and burned early today while trying to land in heavy fog at Rome’s main airport. Officials reported 30 people were killed.

All of the surviving 22 people on Flight 775 from London’s Gatwick airport to Entebbe, Uganda, via Rome, apparently were injured, said Carlo Iovinella, director of the airport police.

The Boeing 707 tore through the side of a wooden house, clipped a garage, demolished an unoccupied brick house and then barreled through the parking lot of a rental car agency.

At that point, an engine and part of a wing fell off and the impact started a fire that destroyed about 75 cars.

The rest of the plane slid across a road, through a fence and knocked down trees before it broke into pieces and burst into flames about a half-mile south of the runway at Leonardo da Vinci airport, 15 miles southwest of Rome.

One man in the wooden house, Carlo Satta, 30, suffered minor injuries when the roof collapsed.

″I was awake and heard a ringing sound. Two seconds later it sounded like the gas cylinders in the house had blown up. A few seconds later all the cars were in flames,″ said the injured man’s father, Luigi.

Passenger John Harigye, a former Ugandan ambassador to the Vatican who was hospitalized in good condition with burns, told the Italian news agency ANSA that the plane aborted one landing attempt because of the fog and tried again about 15 minutes later.

″It was at this point that one heard a very violent collision and immediately afterwards the flames burst out,″ he said. ″My seat was upside down, but I released my seat belt, opened the emergency exit and got out with the woman sitting near me. We began to run and we heard a second explosion on the airplane.″

The commander of Rome Province’s fire department, Guido Chiucini, speculated the pilot and the control tower might have had a ″misunderstanding″ about the landing.

Police said one of the dead was identified as a Ugandan. Twelve Ugandans and three Britons were among the injured, but the nationalities of the others aboard were not immediately available.

Workers had recovered the remains of at least 28 victims at the crash scene, and two others died at hospitals, officials said. Other bodies were thought to be hidden in the wreckage.

While firefighters raked through the debris at dawn, the charred hulk of the airliner lay smoking. Two bodies covered with sheets lay near the wrecked aircraft. Seat cushions, boxes, a makeup case and a twisted doll were scattered in the mud nearby.

Renato Ubasi, an aviation authority official, said searchers had found the cockpit voice recorder. ANSA said police recovered a flight data recorder.

In Kampala, Uganda, Osende Odoi, general manager of the airline, said the aircraft had been modified to reduce noise and was returned to service earlier this year.

Airport director Raffaele Casagrande said in a statement that 45 passengers and seven crew members were aboard the jetliner when it crashed at 12:31 a.m. He said 24 injured people were taken to four hospitals. Officials said two died later.

Iovinella said the cause of the crash was not been determined.

ANSA said the tower gave permission for the plane to land and reported a visibility of 4,920 feet. It said the tower called the plane again when it didn’t respond. Moments later, it said, workers reported a fire at the end of the runway.

The last airline disaster in Italy was the crash of the domestic airline ATI turbo-prop near Lake Como that killed all 37 aboard Oct. 15, 1987. The plane crashed moments after takeoff from Linate Airport in Milan on a flight to West Germany.