2001 Linate Airport runway collision
Scandinavian Airlines System McDonnell Douglas MD-87 and Air Evex Cessna Citation CJ2 · Runway collision in poor visibility, inadequate taxiway signage, and disabled airport motion sensors
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA02RA002
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 118 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 4
- Occupants
- 114
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 4 · all on the ground
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Aircraft 1 · McDonnell Douglas MD-87
- Flight
- SK686
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-87
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- SE-DMA
- Operator
- Scandinavian Airlines System
- Onboard fatalities
- 110
- Occupants
- 110
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- None · no survivors
- Route
- From Milano Linate Airport (LIN)To Copenhagen Kastrup Airport (CPH)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Not recorded
Aircraft 2 · Cessna Citation CJ2
- Aircraft type
- Cessna Citation CJ2
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- D-IEVX
- Operator
- Air Evex
- Onboard fatalities
- 4
- Occupants
- 4
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- None · no survivors
- Route
- From Milano Linate Airport (LIN)To Paris-Le Bourget International Airport (LBG)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 686, a McDonnell Douglas MD-87 airliner carrying 110 people bound for Copenhagen, Denmark, collided on take-off with a Cessna Citation CJ2 business jet carrying four people bound for Paris, France, on 8 October 2001 at Linate Airport in Milan, Italy. All 114 people on both aircraft were killed, as well as four people on the ground.
The subsequent investigation determined that the collision was caused by several nonfunctioning and nonconforming safety systems, standards, and procedures at the airport. It remains the deadliest accident in Italian aviation history.
Accident
The accident occurred in thick fog, with visibility reduced to less than 200 m. The Cessna Citation was instructed to taxi from the western apron along the northern taxiway (taxiway R5), and then via the northern apron to the main taxiway which runs parallel to Runway 36R, a route that would have kept it clear of 36R. Instead, the pilot taxied along the southern taxi route (taxiway R6), crossing Runway 36R towards the main taxiway which lay beyond it (see diagram).
At 08:09:28, the MD-87 was given clearance by a different controller to take off from Runway 36R. Fifty-three seconds later, the MD-87 aircraft, travelling at about 150 kn, collided with the Cessna. The right main landing gear and right engine of the MD-87 were detached on impact. The pilots advanced the throttles and were able to get airborne, reaching an approximate altitude of 35 feet and a maximum airspeed of 166 knots. They then reduced engine power after noticing a loss of thrust due to debris ingestion, and the aircraft made contact with the runway twelve seconds after becoming airborne. Gustafsson applied thrust reverser and brakes and tried to guide the plane through its control surfaces, but the aircraft exited the runway and collided with a luggage hangar located near the runway's end, at a speed of approximately 136 kn. The crash and subsequent fire killed all occupants of the MD-87. In addition, four Italian ground personnel in the hangar were killed and four more were injured.
All occupants of the MD-87 were killed by blunt trauma from the impact with the hangar. Fifty-four of them, mainly in the back of the aircraft, suffered severe burns, requiring their bodies to be identified using forensic dentistry or DNA records.
Investigation and cause
Causes
The accident occurred less than a month after the September 11 attacks and the day after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began, but the Italian government was quick to rule out a terrorist attack as the cause. This was subsequently confirmed by the investigations that followed.
The accident was investigated by the National Agency for the Safety of Flight (ANSV). The ANSV's final report was published on 20 January 2004 and concluded that the "immediate cause" of the accident was the incursion of the Cessna aircraft onto the active runway. However, the ANSV stopped short of placing the blame entirely on the Cessna pilots, who had become lost in the fog. Their report identified deficiencies in the airport layout and procedures.
Linate Airport was operating without a functioning ground radar system at the time, despite having had a new system approved on 30 March 1995. The previous system had been decommissioned on 29 November 1999, but the replacement had not been fully installed. The new system came online a few months later. Guidance signs along the taxiways were obscured, or badly worn, and were later found not to meet regulations. After the pilots mistakenly turned onto the R6 taxiway that led to the runway, there were no signs by which they could recognize where they were. When they stopped at a taxiway stop-marking, and correctly reported its identifier, S4, the ground controller disregarded this identification because it was not on his maps and was unknown to him. Motion sensing runway incursion alarms were present, but had been deactivated to prevent false alarms from ground vehicles or animals. The ground controller's verbal directions used terminology to designate aprons, taxiways, and runways, which did not match their on-the-ground signage and labels. Lastly, neither pilot of the Cessna was certified for landings with visibility less than 500 m, but had landed at the airport an hour before the disaster with a visibility reported by air traffic control of 100 m.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2001 Linate Airport runway collision” (revision 1365649679, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2001 Linate Airport runway collision
- Revision
- 1365649679 · 2026-07-23 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q2292497
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA02RA002
- Event ID
- 20020104X00034
- Case number
- DCA02RA002
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2001 Linate Airport runway collision" (page 293638, revision 1365649679); merged with NTSB case DCA02RA002 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA02RA002
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: ground fatalities
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2001 Linate Airport runway collision" and NTSB case DCA02RA002, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.