Linate airport reopens after crash

The tail of the wrecked SAS airlier

MILAN, Italy -- Milan's Linate airport reopened on Wednesday morning, two days after Italy's worst civil aviation accident that killed 118 people.

The airport had been closed since Monday when a Scandinavian Airways System (SAS) airliner bound for Copenhagen collided on the runway in thick fog with a Cessna light aircraft, careered into a baggage-handling hanger and burst into flames.

Flights had been diverted to Milan's largest airport, Malpensa, and an airport at the nearby city of Bergamo.

The Italian government has blamed human error, compounded by poor visibility, for the accident.

But airport officials have been criticised because the ground radar, which monitors planes on runways, was not in operation. All plane operators had been told at the beginning of the month that it was not working.

Politicians, pilots and media analysts have accused airport bosses of negligence. Magistrates are working on three investigations.

VIDEO Investigating the airport disaster, Tom Bogdanowicz reports (October 9) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   MORE STORIES SAS backs Linate over safety   SAS: Chronology of incidents   Human error blamed for crash

However, SAS chief executive Jorgen Lindegaard said on Tuesday: "We travel to many airports that have ground radar and many that do not. We have no reason to believe there is a safety problem at Linate."

Vincenzo Fusco, director of Linate airport, quoted by Reuters, added: "Ground radar is neither indispensable nor necessary and is not required by European or Italian laws."

Fifty-six of the SAS Flight SK686 victims were Italians, 16 were Danes, four were Finns, officials said.

The UK Foreign Office is attempting to clarify whether two Britons were on board. The nationalities of the others were still being determined.

Two of the passengers were honeymooners who had decided to fly to Scandinavia after tour operators dissuaded them from their first choice of Egypt, saying the area was volatile.

Four ground workers also died, as well as the two German pilots of the eight-seater Cessna and its two Italian businessmen passengers who were being taken on a promotional flight.