Aerolinee Itavia Flight 897
Fokker F-28-1000 and Unknown · Controlled flight into terrain
Event
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 38 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 4
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Fokker F-28-1000
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F-28
- 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
- I-TIDE
- Operator
- Aerolinee Itavia
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cagliari Elmas Airport (CAG)To Geneva International Airport (GVA)
Aircraft 2 · Unknown
- 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
- Unknown
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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
On Aerolinee Itavia Flight 897 (flight number: IH897, callsign: ITAVIA 897), a scheduled flight of Aerolinee Itavia from Cagliari to Geneva with scheduled intermediate stops in Bologna and Turin, a Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship was flown into the ground near Caselle Torinese on 1 January 1974. In the accident, 38 of the 42 people on board were killed.
Accident sequence
After a flight that had been routine up to that point, the aircraft was on a radar-assisted approach to Turin Airport in difficult weather conditions with fog. The visibility in the area of runway 36, on which the aircraft was to touch down, was 900 metres. At 12:38 the aircraft clipped treetops and then the roof of a building under construction. As a result of these collisions, the high-lift devices of the right wing were torn off and the underside of the wing was ripped open. The aircraft then rolled to the right. The right wing and the tail unit collided with the ground and were both torn off. As the aircraft continued to roll, the left wing also finally collided with obstacles and was torn off. The aircraft finally hit the ground inverted and partially slid into an agricultural building. In the accident 38 occupants died; the technician Gianpaolo Sciarra and three passengers survived.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The final report on the accident was published in June 1978, only after four and a half years. In it the investigators concluded that responsibility for the accident lay with the two pilots, Domenico Romeo and Giulio Montanari, who failed to check the altimeter and descended below the glide path despite having no view of the runway, while conducting a visual approach that was actually ruled out under these conditions.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Aerolinee-Itavia-Flug 897” (revision 252894808, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Aerolinee-Itavia-Flug 897
- Article
- Aerolinee-Itavia-Flug 897
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 252894808 · 2025-02-01 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q4016239
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Aerolinee-Itavia-Flug 897" (page 12265092, revision 252894808), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- 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)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.