The World : Jetliner Loss Tied to NATO

An Italian jetliner that crashed in mysterious circumstances off Sicily in 1980 was mistakenly shot down by a missile belonging to a North Atlantic Treaty Organization country, possibly Italy, Italian state television said. Eighty-one people were killed in the crash of the DC-9 belonging to the defunct domestic airline Itavia. The TV report said a fighter aircraft flew off course, firing a missile that failed to find a radio-controlled training target and hit the airliner instead. An official Italian report said at the time that the crash was caused by an explosion but failed to establish the cause.