Former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato suggested, on Saturday, that the most likely cause of the 1980 passenger plane crash near Ustica island in the Mediterranean was the actions of the French air force, which allegedly attempted to target former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

On June 27, 1980, Itavia flight 870, conducted by a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 passenger jet, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea, a part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western Italian coast, between the islands of Ponza and Ustica while en route from Bologna to Palermo, resulting in the tragic loss of all 81 people on board.

"The most credible version points to the responsibility of the French air force with the complicity of the Americans and those who participated in the air war in our skies on the evening of the same June 27," Amato told the Italian newspaper la Repubblica.

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The plan was to "simulate NATO drills involving many aircraft" during which a missile would have been fired, appearing as if it were an accident targeting the Libyan plane carrying Gaddafi, who was scheduled to fly in the area that day, Amato said.

However, Gaddafi received a warning and never boarded his MiG-29, while the missile intended for him allegedly struck the Itavia plane, according to the former Italian leader.

In 2015, the Palermo Court of Appeal ruled that the cause of the 1980 plane crash was a missile hitting the DC-9, fired by another aircraft that crossed its route. The court ruled out theories involving a bomb planted on board the passenger aircraft or the plane's self-destruction.

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