France offers its files on the Ustica crash
NEWS · DEVELOPING. France has offered Italy its files on the Ustica disaster, a passenger plane that went down in 1980 and killed 81 people.
On 27 June 1980 an Itavia DC-9, flight IH870 from Bologna to Palermo, fell into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica. All 81 people on board died: 77 passengers and 4 crew.
According to ANSA, on 21 September the French embassy told Italy's foreign ministry that Paris is ready to transfer documents from 1981 to the early 1990s, including papers from France's defence ministry.
The timing matters. In March 2025 Rome prosecutors asked a judge to close the investigation, citing a lack of cooperation from France and the United States. The victims' families opposed it. At a hearing today, prosecutors are expected to ask to withdraw that request, which would keep the case open.
No one has been convicted. In 2007 Italy's top court definitively acquitted air force generals. In the civil cases, the same court found in 2013 that the missile theory was well supported, and ordered the state to compensate the families. A bomb is the other theory; Rome prosecutors consider it ruled out and point to an air battle.
France has been named before. In 2008 former president Francesco Cossiga said Italy's secret services told him "it was the French". In 2023 former prime minister Giuliano Amato said a French missile hit the plane. France has never admitted any role. On 29 September a French diplomatic source said France "has provided the elements at its disposal every time it was asked".
Daria Bonfietti, who leads the association of the victims' families: "I believe 46 years are necessary and sufficient."
81 dead, and no one convicted. Can new files still give an answer?
The voice in this reel is AI-generated. Quotes are translated. Script and checks by The Italy Desk. Photos: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA.
ANSA, AGI, Il Fatto Quotidiano, LaPresse, Il Post, Quotidiano Nazionale, Sky TG24, Open
