Itavia Flight 870

On 27 June 1980, Itavia Flight 870 (IH 870, AJ 421), a Douglas DC-9 passenger jet en route from Bologna to Palermo, Italy, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica at 20:59 CEST, killing all 81 occupants on board. Known in Italy as the Ustica massacre (Italian: strage di Ustica), the disaster led to numerous investigations, as well as legal actions and accusations; it continues to be a source of controversy, including claims of conspiracy by the Government of Italy and others. Francesco Cossiga, the Prime Minister of Italy at the time, attributed the crash to the shooting down by a French missile during a dogfight between Libyan and French fighter jets. The technical commission's report concluded that a bomb hidden in the rear lavatory caused the aircraft's destruction. However, this conclusion still remains highly contested. In September 2023, former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato declared that the crash was "part of a plan to shoot down the airplane of Gaddafi".