Originally Posted by MountainBear
I apologize for my deficient search skills but does anyone have a link to an English version (if one exists) of the underlying accident report that precipitated this action.
I believe the Italian aircraft accident investigation board (ANSV) has released only the Italian version of the report (so far?):
http://www.ansv.it/cgi-bin/ita/ANSV%20OE-FAN.pdf
The ICAO Annex 13 investigation done by the ANSV concluded that the airplane descended to an altitude significantly below the area minimum altitude (AMA), insufficient to maintain the separation from the ground during a night visual approach in the absence of adequate visual reference.
Possible contributory factors included:
- The aircraft was not equipped with GPWS or TAWS, nor was it required to be by law;
- Premature VFR descent after misidentifying lights on the ground as the Elmas runway lights (induced by "black hole approach");
- Misunderstanding of the clearance given by APP at hand off to TWR ("CIT 124 continue not below 2500 feet, further descent with Elmas TWR 120.6 bye");
- Failure to use published procedures and available instruments under conditions of total darkness;
- Early deviation from airway and consequent overflight of areas with elevated terrain;
- Read errors of the elevations listed in the maps consulted, facilitated by the non representation of the ground color;
- Inadequate rest, which may have contributed to a reduction in the performance of the crew.
In Italy, a criminal investigation is compulsory for any non-natural death. This usually leads to a trial with charges for involuntary manslaughter, air disaster or endangering transportation safety. The prosecutor, the defense and the court have their own expert witnesses and (in principle) the criminal investigation is completely independent from the ICAO Annex 13 investigation. The
ANACNA website has most of the relevant documents from the trial, but they are in Italian only.