Forty-six years after one of the most painful mysteries in modern Italian history, a crucial door has finally opened. As confirmed by major media outlets, the French Embassy in Rome has forwarded a trove of classified documents - including archives from the French Ministry of Defense - to the Italian Foreign Ministry concerning the tragic Ustica disaster.
For American readers, the Ustica tragedy is Italy’s ultimate aviation cold case: on June 27, 1980, an Itavia commercial Douglas DC-9 flying between Bologna and Palermo plunged into the Tyrrhenian Sea, killing all 81 people on board. For decades, the lingering suspicion of a stray missile or an unacknowledged military engagement in Mediterranean skies - amid Cold War tensions and friction with Libya - has fueled decades of conspiracy theories and alleged international cover-ups.
Now, this diplomatic turn changes everything. The documents span up to the 1990s, directly answering long-standing requests for judicial assistance (rogatories) from the Rome Prosecutor’s Office. Promptly transferred from the government to the judiciary, this material has prompted prosecutors to take a historic step: pulling back their request to archive the case ahead of a key hearing before the preliminary investigations judge.