Private jet's wrong turn blamed in crash

MILAN, Italy -- Investigators have traced Italy's worst airline disaster to a wrong turn taken by the pilot of a business jet that taxied into the path of a speeding jetliner.

Investigators said Tuesday that communications recorded Monday between the twin-engine Cessna and the control tower at Milan's Linate airport indicate the pilot, steering on the ground through dense fog, was convinced he was on the R5 taxiway, which loops around the airport's only runway.

Instead the Cessna taxied down the R6 taxiway, which leads directly onto the runway, Milan Chief Prosecutor Gerardo D'Ambrosio said.

An SAS airliner accelerating down the runway hit the Cessna, careened into a baggage handling depot and exploded, killing 118 people.

"It is true there has been a human error," D'Ambrosio said, "that the Cessna turned onto the wrong path, convinced he was on the right one. But we need to go all the way to see what may have had an influence on this error."

The details emerged as rescue crews recovered the last of the bodies from the wreckage and attention focused on whether ground radar, out of service for months while a new system was being installed, could have prevented the catastrophe.

The radar, which tracks the movement of aircraft on the ground, might have alerted controllers hampered by fog to the Cessna's mistake, experts said.

The MD-87 bound for Copenhagen with 104 passengers and six crew members was accelerating for takeoff and had its nose wheel off the ground when the Cessna Citation II with four people aboard taxied into its path.

The head of SAS flight operations, Lars Mydland, told a news conference Tuesday that the SAS aircraft was going 155 mph and was about halfway down the runway when it started to lift off.

By Tuesday evening 118 bodies had been recovered, 38 of them identified, the ANSA news agency said. DNA would be used for those burned beyond recognition, prosecutor Celestina Gravina said.