SEVEN

Unreported Inbound Palermo

Ustica is a tiny island off the Northern coast of Sicily where on 27th June 1980 one of the most mysterious incidents in recent Italian history occurred. Itavia 870, on an internal flight from Bologna to Palermo, crashed with the loss all of all eighty-one passengers. There had been no indication of any problem on board. Subsequent enquiries have failed to cast light on the causes of the accident.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

IF THIS WERE a chapter on Ustica, it would have to be the history of the aircraft. It would be the history of an aircraft which plunged to the bottom of the sea only to re-emerge from the waters, a creature of metal which sank and rose again, as in a mythical tale, a being created for the air which ended in water; water believed by humankind to be the worst of all things, worse than earth or mountain, brutal by contrast, water occasions greater fear, three thousand metres under the surface of the sea, three thousand seven hundred, and then raised from the sea piece by piece, and every piece reassembled with infinite care around the makeshift structure, the simulacrum, as that unreal skeleton in the hangar is called, every piece attached in faithful reconstruction of the original aircraft. The history might be entitled The Itigis, as if it were the tale of some ancient people or of trees older than time and not of pieces of metal which crumbled and were reassembled. In the air, on the sea bed and finally on land. And when is the next departure?

“Bologna Ground, ready to start up engines.”

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero cleared, temperature twenty-four degrees, stop, time on the hour. Do you have the latest weather report?” and in the silence of the hangar, at nights, a slow drip-drip could be heard, as though even now when the aircraft was on dry land, the sea, after pressing down for years on the metal molecules, was continuing its slow withdrawal, drop by drop, and as though the aircraft would never be completely free of its grip.

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, cleared for Palermo via Florence, Ambra One Three, climb and maintain flight level One Nine Zero. Repeat and report ready to take off.” The Itigis, I-TIGI, India Tango India Golf India, would be a first-person narrative related by the metal itself, a being which was first an aircraft, then finished on the sea bed and rose again, and was once again, later, an aircraft, a creature of reconstituted metal: but between its before and after as an aircraft, not everything can resume its place, for around eighty people, passengers and crew, are missing.

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, take-off at eight hundred hours, contact Padua Information.”

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero with Padua information, Bologna goodbye,” an event which moves backwards enveloping itself within itself, as in those film sequences where a bottle of milk shatters in a thousand pieces causing the thick liquid to spurt in all directions, and then each shard, reconstituting itself, flashes back through time and space into the place it had occupied, with even the liquid flowing back into the bottle drop by drop. But in the unmaking and remaking of the event, something is missing and will be missing forever.

“Good evening Padua, Itavia Eight Seven Zero here.”

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, proceed as cleared, report Florence.” Sweeping over the ocean bed, the underwater camera made out five letters of the alphabet, I-TIGI, painted in black on the underside of the left wing, and there could be no further doubt, the Itigis were there, the tail four kilometres ahead of the pilot’s cabin.

“Good evening, Rome, Itavia Eight Seven Zero here.”

“Good evening to you, Eight Seven Zero. go ahead.”

“Eight Seven Zero over Florence, flight level One Six Zero climbing One Nine Zero. Estimate Bolsena at Three Four.”

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, roger. Squawk ident One Two Three Six. Cleared to Palermo via Bolsena, Puma, Latina, Ponza, Ambra One Three.”

“One Two Three Six squawking. Eight Seven Zero ready for further climb.”

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, radar contact. Climb initially to flight level Two Three Zero. Other company traffic proceeds you, six miles ahead, flight level Two Five Zero.”

“Rome, traffic in sight.”

The Itigis were lying there, not far from a Roman ship with a cargo of glass, a vessel with seventeenth-century cannons, a Second World War Messerschmitt fighter, items from the memories of transport, an involuntary sea-bed museum.

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, turn right, heading One Seven Zero. With traffic in sight cleared flight level Two Nine Zero. Resume own navigation to Bolsena passing flight level Two Six Zero.”

“Eight Seven Zero up to flight level Two Nine Zero, leaving One Nine Zero.” From the beginning the sonar echo traced on the plotters the outline of uncertain, abstract magnetic masses, with the probability ranging through high, medium and low that it was not a geological object but an object of human construction; later in full view of the cameras, every piece became a numbered object, and finally, at the moment the cranes lowered it, dripping water, onto the deck, its nature was established as an exhibit.

“Rome, Eight Seven Zero passing flight level Two Four Five with traffic in sight. Cleared to turn left?”

“Affirmative, Itavia Eight Seven Zero. Proceed Bolsena.”

To the east of the route, since without warning the aircraft veered to the east and so plunged into the sea, (who would have believed that the cardinal points existed even under the sea?), were found the two engines, the one a quarter of a mile from the other, another mile to the east lay the cabin and wings, a further mile and a half off the trailing rudder, another two miles to the east the stern section of the fuselage and a large portion of the left wing which had sheared off not on impact but due to extreme acceleration during descent, further still to the east a fuel tank which had got there from somewhere or other, and finally the fuselage end plate, the six rear windows on the right, the six rear windows on the left.

“Good evening Rome, Eight Seven Zero here.”

“Eight Seven Zero calling?”

“Yes, good evening, this is Eight Seven Zero maintaining Two Nine Zero over Puma.”

“Roger, Eight Seven Zero, proceed Latina-Ponza.”

Everything at the rear would finish up forward and vice versa, the Itigis, whatever hurtled them into the sea, had arranged themselves on the ocean floor along a corridor of debris almost ten kilometres in length, in the reverse of the order in which they had been flying at that moment. Every little detail was a work of deduction, the in-flight instruments as much as the rugs and carpet, neatly sheared off at the fourth row of seats. What can objects know about plots and actions? What do they know about ringleaders and accomplices? The objects are simply there. This should be the history of an aeroplane, because an aeroplane knows its history – how many people in this world know its history? In the absence of words, it would be the history of things, history of metal, metal sinning and sinned against, the fuselage knows what has produced unequal local disintegration just forward of the tailplane, the left fin of the stabiliser knows what opened a cross-shaped incision on its edge, just as the underside of the right flap certainly knows what perforated it and knows the nature of the tiny iron pellets located inside the metal sheets, the left side door knows what ripped away the external coating (simply designated “skin” in the inventory), the wrenched-off rivets know if they were detached by the speed of descent or by the force of a strike.

“Good evening, Rome. Eight Seven Zero here.”

“Good evening, Eight Seven Zero, maintain flight level Two Nine Zero, report on Ambra One Three Alpha.”

“Yes, listen, is Ponza out of action as well?”

“Sorry?”

“It’s like padding through a graveyard this evening. South of Florence, there’s hardly a beacon in operation.”

“Afraid so, nearly everything’s down tonight, including Ponza. What’s your heading now?”

“We’re maintaining heading One Nine Five.”

“OK, maintain One Nine Five. With present heading you’ll arrive some miles south of Ponza.”

“Good, thanks.”

“But look, you’re only going to be able to maintain heading One Nine Five for another twenty miles or so, no more, there’s a strong westerly wind, at your level it’ll reach One Hundred to One Twenty knots.”

“Yes, we’ve done our own calculations, and it must be something of that order.”

The frame of the toilet door knows what flattened it into that shape, whether it was a shock wave while still in flight or the rudder crashing into the cabin on impact with the sea and crushing everything in its path, the rug in row five knows what ripped it apart, each piece of metal or plastic or fabric knows which other object, which splinter, and of what, reduced it to its present state.

“The Eight Seven Zero here, can we have … Two Five Zero as level?”

“Affirmative. You can descend right away.”

“Thank you, we’re leaving Two Nine Zero.”

The Itigis did not all make their return at the same time but one by one (did the pieces left down below feel abandoned in the meantime?), first the cockpit with the nose-wheel welded onto it, the right wing, the left engine, parts of the cabin, the front service hatch, some bulkheads from the baggage hold, the voice recorder, seats, life-jackets, assorted tiny fragments. In this way, the aircraft in the hangar was re-formed in time, the crates were opened as they were brought in, the parts laid out on the cement, the items identified, the large tailplane assembled on the bearings, and for the cabin they began with the formers and battens of the structure, just as they had originally done in the factory.

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, you’ve got Ponza three miles to the right, so for Palermo you’re more or less on track.”

“Much obliged, we’re close to flight level Two Five Zero.”

“Perfect, Eight Seven Zero, in any case report as soon as you receive Palermo VOR.”

“Yes, we’ve already tuned Papa Alpha Lima, and everything’s OK. And we have the Ponza DME.”

“Perfect. So normal navigation to Palermo. Maintain Two Five Zero, and report on Alpha.”

Who knows what emotions those who did that work will have had to keep in check (and what modest comfort they may have derived from thinking that work is work, or that they were in some way engaged on a “search for the truth”). Each item was given its tab, the maintenance manuals and the construction diagrams helped slot everything into its proper place and, in the early stages, each item hung with its label from the trestlework frame alongside the empty spaces which marked the missing pieces. As the aircraft resumed its shape and it became clear what was there and what was not, and where the destruction was more and where less complete, it became possible to read the aircraft as though it were the fragment of a palimpsest, each piece contributing to one possible reading of what had occurred, the right flank much more wracked with pain than the other, the metal not rusted even in the cracks, the company colours still seemingly fresh, the black stains of the engine air exhaust still visible; except that each piece no longer fitted with the others, because each clung to its own history, or its own deformity.

“Eight Seven Zero is on Alpha.”

“Roger, slightly right of track, let’s say . . . four miles. But look, radar service terminates here. Contact Rome Aerovie on One Two Eight point Eight for further transmissions.”

“Thanks for everything. Good night.”

“Good night, Eight Seven Zero.”

When the pieces were brought together, matched and refitted after all those years and miles of distance and separation, the eye could not determine what had occured, even if each part conserved the memory of it, because the aircraft in its present state is not as it was when resting on the sea bed, and it is on that arrangement, on that sea-chart of débris that any reading and interpretation should begin. The aircraft had either disintegrated in flight, leaving each piece to follow its own private parabola from twenty-five thousand feet to zero, or else it had plummeted headlong, engines dead, tearing itself apart on impact, and in that case it was the impact and nothing but the impact which was responsible for each and every injury, and the air and sea currents which were responsible for the drift.

“Rome, good evening, Itavia Eight Seven Zero.”

“Good evening Itavia Eight Seven Zero, ahead.”

“One hundred and fifteen miles for Papa Romeo Sierra, maintaining flight level Two Five Zero.”

“Roger, Itavia Eight Seven Zero, can you give us an estimate for Raisi?”

“Eight Seven Zero estimating Raisi around One Three.”

“Roger Eight Seven Zero, cleared to Raisi VOR, no delay expected. Report descent.”

“No delay to Raisi. Will report descent.”

“That’s correct.”

Perhaps out of respect, the passenger seats were never reassembled, the interior of the aircraft was a gangway laid out on the framework of the original flooring, as far as it could be reconstructed, and on it the carpet had been laid, and above the whole complex there was a tunnel made up of the cabin, left open fore and aft.

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, when ready cleared to flight level One One Zero. Report leaving Two Five Zero and passing One Five Zero . . . Itavia Eight Seven Zero?”

At intervals in the hangar the families would gather around the Itigis to give vent to their pain or to give an account of the actions undertaken to obtain justice and knowledge of the truth, and on such occasions, the Itigis, after being a scheduled flight, after being wreckage lost, recovered and reassembled, became a monument to the dead. It would have been, for anyone observing in ignorance of the history, for anyone chancing upon those poor people assembled in a hangar around a patchwork aeroplane, an image of utterly incomprehensible anguish, all the more so since, on such occasions, the gangways inside the aircraft were no longer walked by experts but by police officers, authority figures and some photographers.

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, do you read?”

In time the final pieces – the final fragment of a batten, the final stringer piece, the final section of riveted lining – all turned up and the Itigis were almost completely reunited, almost. And when is the next departure?

“Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Rome here, do you read?”

The flight recorder came to light, as did the last of the life-jackets, the last of the oxygen masks, the frame of the forward door with porthole into the pilot’s cabin, one fuel pump, one longeron with lining and rivets, one fold-away stool and one door with circular handle – “Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Rome . . . ? Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Rome here . . . do you read?” – one electrical box, three hydraulic pipes, one crushed rod, one cockpit instrument, one jack with spring, one seat with safety belt – “Itavia Eight Seven Zero, do you read? . . . Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Rome here do you read? . . .” – one piece of light-blue plate steel with instrument attached, one section of wing with valves and pipes, one black electrical/electronic box, one Plexiglas window, one piece of fuselage structure with mounting containing word “Douglas,” one piece of black casing with attached tubing, one grey-green container with electrical wiring – “Air Malta Seven Five Eight, this is Rome control,” “Rome go ahead,” “Air Malta Seven Five Eight, please, try to call for us, try to call for us Itavia Eight Seven Zero, please,” “Roger, sir . . . Itavia Eight Seven Zero . . . Itavia Eight Seven Zero, this is Air Malta charter Seven Five Eight, do you read? Itavia Eight Seven Zero . . . Itavia Eight Seven Zero, this is Air Malta charter Seven Five Eight, do you read . . . do you read? . . . Rome, negative contact with Itavia Eight Seven Zero” – another two windows with emergency exit handle, the notice bearing the illuminated sign “Emergency exit,” a further piece of fuselage with red paint, another white piece of fuselage with light-blue interior bent around white exterior, a burnt transformer with cable, a fragment of the de-icing line, some pages of the flight manual, a piece of external covering scorched by friction, one instrument without dial – “Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Itavia Eight Seven Zero, this is Rome control, do you read? . . . Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Rome control, do you read?” – one hoist with static discharger, one piece of Y-shaped ventilation pipe, one cabin window, one frame for pulley support, the rear stairway, the end section of left wing, one white dividing panel, one electrical fuse box with lid, various battens and traverse frames, the galley, one fragment of cabin with WC flush mechanism, one toilet seat – “Air Malta, this is Rome.” “Rome go ahead, this is Air Malta.” “OK, sir, we have Itavia Eight Seven Zero unreported inbound Palermo, please, please try to call for us Itavia Eight Seven Zero, try to call for us Itavia Eight Seven Zero,” “Alitalia Eight Seven Zero?” “Itavia, sir, Itavia, Itavia Eight Seven Zero,” “Roger . . . Itavia Eight Seven Zero, Itavia Eight Seven Zero this is Air Malta. Do you read? Itavia Eight Seven Zero, do you read? … do you read?. . .”

Do you read?