The time has come again to express serious concerns about the world's flight safety community: It is besieged by mounting unfairness and injustice. The latest development, the worst since unwarranted accident criminalization first appeared, comes from Italy. Four years after a Tuninter ATR 72-200 twin turboprop ditched into the sea off Sicily, a court in Palermo has sentenced seven pilots, airline executives and techniciansrnin absentia to terms up to 10 years The aircraft took off from Bari, headed to Djerba, Tunisia, but was forced to ditch when both engines stopped due to empty fuel tanks. Sixteen of the 39 people on board were killed. An investigation team determined that the ill-fated ATR 72 had been fitted with an ATR 42 fuel gauge. Information displayed on the flight deck, indicating the aircraft was carrying sufficient fuel, was incorrect.
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