Milan airport runway closed
from the BBC (see the last few paras)
Italian authorities have ordered the closure of a connecting runway at Linate airport in Milan, where a collision on Monday led to the death of 118 people in Italy's worst aviation disaster.
The order from Milan's state attorney was issued after Italy's flight safety agency said that signals on some lanes feeding the main runway fell short of international standards.
The crash happened when a jet belonging to the Scandinavian airline, SAS, which was taking off, hit a smaller aircraft, ploughed into a hangar and exploded.
The smaller aircraft, a Cessna, was crossing the main runway at the time.
Preliminary investigations have indicated that the causes of the disaster appear to have been misunderstandings between Italian flight controllers and the Cessna's German pilots, poor signals on the connecting runway, and thick fog.
Some reports suggest that the Cessna's pilots may have believed they were on a different taxiway which did not cross the runway.
There has also been a heated debate about the busy airport's lack of a functioning ground radar system.
"The signalling on certain connecting runways at Milan-Linate airport did not meet international standards set down by the International Civil Aviation Organization," said spokesman Adalberto Pellegrino of the flight safety agency.
He said this fact had been discovered during a technical investigation and that the civil aviation authority had been immediately alerted.
The connecting runway was closed on Wednesday, the day the airport re-opened.
At least three investigations have been opened into the disaster.
Two "black boxes" from the SAS plane were recovered: the flight data recorder and an optional system that records equipment maintenance information.
All those killed were travelling on the SAS aircraft, except the four occupants of the Cessna, and four hangar workers, who were pinned under the plane.
Italy's Transport Minister, Pietro Lunardi, said a new ground radar system should be working "by the end of this year".
Norway's Aftenposten newspaper says a Norwegian team has arrived in Milan to install part of the new system, and that work should begin within a week.
It adds that the system has been in storage in Milan since 1995, alleging that Italian weapons industries disliked the fact that the contract was signed with a foreign manufacturer.
There have been reports that motion detectors at the end of the access taxiway were deactivated because traffic controllers could make little sense of them without a radar system.