SAS clears home page for accident information

Airline Industry Information, Oct 8, 2001

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

SAS, the Scandinavian airline, has cleared the front page of its web site after an accident at Milan's Linate airport this morning (8 October) that is thought to have killed more than 100 people.

According to recent information, all 110 people aboard the SAS aircraft are thought to have died and Italian authorities have confirmed that there are 118 confirmed deaths after the accident, according to Nettavisen, a Norwegian online newspaper.

The SAS MD-87 aircraft with the flight number SK686 reportedly crashed shortly before take-off at around 0815 local time this morning after the pilot steered away from a smaller aircraft that was blocking its path. Eye witnesses have said that there was a heavy fog at the airport at the time of the accident. The SAS aircraft was carrying 104 passengers and six crew members and there were reportedly 48 Italians and 56 passengers of other nationalities aboard. Between 12 and 15 Danes are thought to have perished in the accident, according to Gunner Larsen, the Danish consul general in Milan. It is not known if there were any Swedes or Norwegians aboard the aircraft.

The SAS aircraft was en route to Copenhagen, Denmark when it tried to steer away from a smaller aircraft, thought to be a German Cessna with two German pilots and two Italian passengers aboard. None of these survived the accident. The SAS aircraft apparently hit a luggage handling building before catching fire. There are normally 20-25 people working in the building, according to the Linate airport management. The MD-87 broke into three pieces when it hit the building with its right side and it apparently took more than two hours to extinguish the fire in the remains of the aircraft.

Rescue personnel are said to have heard screaming from the demolished building, but there is apparently little hope of finding survivors and 12 people from the building have already been found dead. Rescue workers have also told the Italian news agency Ansa that 60 dead bodies had been found three hours after the accident.

The Norwegian foreign ministry has said that there is unlikely to be a connection between the accident and the terrorist attacks in the USA. The accident has been described as the worst involving an SAS aircraft in the history of the airline. It is reportedly the fourth accident in which SAS passengers have been killed, with the most recent one in 1969 when 15 passengers where killed when a DC-8 landed in the sea off Los Angeles, USA.

SAS has reportedly established a crisis centre at Copenhagen's Kastrup airport and the team includes experts such as psychologists. There is apparently also a room for 'family and friends' at Stockholm's Arlanda airport, terminal five. An aircraft with members of the 'Special Assistance Team' has been sent to Italy by SAS to help the local authorities, according to Peter Minor at the airline.

The registration of the destroyed aircraft is SE-DMA and the name 'Lage Viking'.

This afternoon, at 1300 CET, SAS held a press conference chaired by SAS CEO Jorgen Lindegaard and deputy CEO Marie Ehrling. The airline said that there is no confirmation of the number of people killed in the accident as no confirmed reports have been received from Italy. The airline also said that there is nothing to indicate any connections to terrorism although contradictory information makes it hard to tell what the exact events were at the airport.

The Swedish police have reportedly received a copy of the passenger list.

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