Relatives mark Italy's worst civil air disaster

Hundreds of people gathered at Linate airport in Milan yesterday to remember the 118 people killed in Italy's worst civil aviation disaster.

The ceremony, in which white roses were laid on the asphalt, took place a year to the day after two jets crashed in an accident caused largely by human error and breaches of safety rules. Among those at the ceremony was a baggage handler still recovering from the burns he suffered when a Cessna jet strayed into the path of a Scandinavian Airline Systems MD-87. Pasquale Padovano rose from his stretcher to join the victims' families in a moment of silence at 8.10am, the time of the disaster.

Later families and friends went to a stand of 118 beech trees, planted last spring in a nearby park.A fatherless toddler scampered about as the basilica ceremony ended with the hymn "Amazing Grace".The congregation was read a message of solidarity from the recently retired Milan Cardinal, Carlo Maria Martini.

At a funeral service after the disaster, Cardinal Martini denounced the negligence that caused the crash."It's very painful," said Josh King, whose younger sister, Jessica, from Los Angeles, was killed. "It was so easily preventable."