Good evening from the Bel Paese (Italy)
Very interesting story, however I sincerely believe that it did not happen. Actually, and I am pretty involved with Italian aeronautical matters, I have heard nothing about it at all. It could be that I am wrong, but I doubt: it would have been a massive cover-up operation, impossible with 180 pax on board.
Furthermore, as you may guess, ENAC (the Italian CAA), all the medias (TVs, daily press, etc.) and AZ are - say - very close "friends", and if it really happend it would have hit the headlines for days if not weeks. ENAC would have also grounded FR in Italy immediately and forever, possibly!
Remember also that in these days the nearly bankrupt (or simply bankrupt ?) flag carrier is keeping a very close eye on anything that could help its survival. This would have been a "golden", actually a "platinum" opportunity: ...low cost airlines are unsafe, they cut on maintenance costs, they cut corners, LCC pilots are under pressure to land/take off always, bla, bla, bla ...
And do not forget the behaviour of the average Italian pax: they would have called nationl TVs, local TVs, all kind of medias, friends, relatives, MPs and possibly the Pope with their mobiles 1 sec after landing ...
No, I do not believe that any FR 73s did an 87 deg bank here under. Possibly what happened it was a GA with a strong pull up and bank, but by far not an 87 deg. It could also have been that the Capt was smart enough to inform over the PA during the approach that due to fog a GA was a strong possibility, and no one on board paid attention to it. GAs happen in northern Italy regularly, and I do remember Capts saying "... we are now on final approach (even if they were still far away on the glide path) your destination airport where visibility right now is just above our minima ...possibly we will be forced to abort our landing and try another approach/divert to our alternate airport ...if this will happen the aircraft will initially climb strongly ...this is perfectly normal ... I do also remember Capts doing a very good mktg job saying that they (their airline)would love to land, but the destination airport ILS (I recall TRN, MXP, LIN, VCE, BLQ in the not too distant past) was not fully operational/not certified/out of service/not Cat. 3A or B. Airline xyz apologizes, but the blame had to be put on the airport authority. Thank you for your understanding and flying airline xyz.
