Aero Trasporti Italiani Flight 327
Fokker F27 Friendship · Controlled flight into terrain caused by pilot error
From Naples International Airport (NAP) to Brindisi Airport (BDS)
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
- 27 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 27
- 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
- 0
- 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
Fokker F27 Friendship
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F27
- 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-ATIR
- Operator
- Aero Trasporti Italiani
- Onboard fatalities
- 27
- Route
- From Naples International Airport (NAP)To Brindisi Airport (BDS)
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Aero Trasporti Italiani Flight BM 327 was a scheduled flight between Naples-Capodichino and Brindisi-Casale with a stopover at Bari-Palese Airport, operated by the Italian airline ATI Aero Trasporti Italiani with a Fokker F27-200, registration I-ATIR (c/n 10301, built in 1966, it had 17420 hours and 23337 cycles at the time of the accident), which on 30 October 1972, at about 20:40 CET, crashed into a hill in the countryside between Corato, Ruvo di Puglia and Poggiorsini, in the province of Bari, causing 27 deaths: 3 crew members and 24 passengers.
The accident
The aircraft had taken off from Naples at 20:00, about 20 minutes behind the scheduled time. On board, in addition to the three crew members, 22 passengers and 2 off-duty ATI flight technicians had boarded. The flight had proceeded normally until about 50 km from Bari airport, when Captain Cardone radioed that he had the landing runway in sight, then the crash.
Investigation and cause
The investigation
The ATI technicians who took part in the commission of inquiry stated that the aircraft had "belly-flopped" onto the ground at over 400 km/h, causing the underside of the fuselage to split open, which, as it slid across the rocky ground, was emptied of everything it contained.
The pilot's communication stating that he was preparing for a visual landing (the airport at the time was in fact equipped neither with radar equipment for traffic control nor with the ILS precision instrument landing system) and the aircraft's altimeter, which was found among the wreckage indicating 1,450 ft, about 442 m, the height of the crash site, led to the hypothesis of pilot error.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Italian Wikipedia article “Volo Aero Trasporti Italiani 327” (revision 145408806, 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
Italian Wikipedia article: Volo Aero Trasporti Italiani 327
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 145408806 · 2025-06-12 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q4016224
- 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
- it Wikipedia article "Volo Aero Trasporti Italiani 327" (page 3805228, revision 145408806), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia article: the date in its opening sentence (the infobox gives none to the day)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- 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: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Italian Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.