Airport staff face crash charges

Debris on the Milan Linate runway

MILAN, Italy -- Eleven people, mostly air traffic controllers, face manslaughter charges for a runway accident in which 118 people died.

The 11 have been at the centre of an investigation into the cause of Italy's worst civil aviation disaster.

All the passengers and crew of two planes died when they collided on a runway at Milan's Linate airport last October. Four ground staff were also killed when an SAS jumbo jet careered into a hanger following the collision with a private jet.

Of an original 20 or so people placed under investigation, 11 remained on the prosecutors' list, prosecutor Giuliano Turone told The Associated Press on Friday.

Prosecutors will ask a judge to charge those 11 with manslaughter and other indictments.

Most of the 11 are officials or former officials with ENAV, the national air traffic controllers' association, as well as Linate airport officials.

Excluded from the list was Giorgio Fossa, the president of the company that runs the airport.

The SAS aircraft had veered off the runway as it was taking off after hitting the Cessna, which had crossed into its path. The Cessna had been on the wrong runway at the time.

Investigators said the crash was caused by human error compounded by poor visibility due to heavy fog.

But some claimed the ground radar, out of service for months while a new system was being installed, might have prevented the catastrophe.

Ground radar has since been reinstalled at the airport.