Lupo Rattazzi: « On Enrico Mattei no conspiracy, his plane fell out of bad weather and I can prove it »

«The story of the attack that would kill the President of Eni, Enrico Matteiis one of the great mystifications established in Italy in recent decades ». Lupo Rattazzi He achieved the first pilot license at the age of 20 and has a passonaccia for planes that has always been. Over time it was Councilor of the National Civil Aviation Authoritypresident of Assereo, he founded Air Europe and for some years he has been president of the airline Neosas well as shareholder and vice -president of Grosseto airport. With Cantetteria, it reports that he has « a fair number of hours of flight to his active », but changes register when he talks about Mattei. A story recomposed by Rattazzi like a mosaic.

The first to speak in the seventies was Ferdinando Bignardione of the commanders of the fleet Eni in the days of Mattei, who after the accident left the state oil company to move on to Fiatwhere for seventeen he was the personal driver of Gianni Agnelli, Rattazzi’s uncle. That three years ago found Eni’s plane, twin of the one precipitated with Mattei on board and decided to buy it on board. «In 1963 Eni sold this second plane, which then had various American owners including the actor John Travolta». After the restoration Rattazzi wanted to donate it to Flyingthe park and the flight museum in Malpensa. « I would like to become a permanent symbol of a mystification, in the center of which – observes – there is him, this aircraft ».

What happens on the evening of October 27, 1962 in Bascapè, between Pavia and Milan?
«The plane with Enrico Mattei on board takes off at 5 pm from Catania. The weather forecasts are bad and after flying over the island of Elba, the commander Irnerio Bertuzzi is forced to change the route due to a bad disturbance. From the control center of Milan, the bulletin on Linate airport communicates to him: total coverage of the sky at 150 meters, horizontal visibility of 600 meters, rain and fog ».

Bertuzzi, however, continues.
«A landing is excluded in Genoa and Bertuzzi continues the flight to Linate because Mattei wanted to get to Milan. At the time of misfortune, the plane is now a couple of minutes from the destination, but it arrives too high, finding itself at six thousand feet (1,800 meters, editor’s note), instead of about 2 thousand feet (600 meters, editor’s note) necessary to take the direct descent path. Bertuzzi therefore finds himself forced to dispose of the excess altitude, but during this final the airplane the plane precipitates from a share of 650 meters « .

Was Mattei plane difficult to pilot?
«The French construction plane is a Morane-Saulnier, a rudimentary jet, born as a military trainer aircraft then converted into an improbable executive plane, without anti-crooked protections, meteorological radar and automatic pilot. Features that increased operational effort in an enormous way. That evening without self -cilot and in bad weather conditions everything complicated beyond all predictions. It should be added that at 650 meters of altitude every error becomes difficult to remedy and there is no room to recover in case of mistakes ».

At the time two investigations are started. The first of the Ministry of Defense and the other of the Pavia Prosecutor’s Office. What conclusion do they come to?
« Of the technical investigation I quote the official documents: » No findings have emerged – Rattazzi reads – that documents injury attributable to outbreaks of explosion that could have damaged the occupants the aircraft before it had hit the ground. It is to be excluded that a breakdown may occur «  ».

What does the prosecutor of Pavia instead establishes?
«In this case too I quote the documents. The magistrates established that « no trace of metal splinters or other material was stuck in the cadaveric remains … and therefore it declared itself … the not having to proceed in order to the crimes entitled by unknown persons because the fact does not exist » « .

Yet multiple analyzes and reconstructions go to another direction: Many had an interest in making Mattei out.
«Each plane crash involving an important person feeds voices of an alleged conspiracy. In Mattei’s case, conspiracy is unleashed To a whole series of characters united by the total lack of concrete clues to support their suspicions: repentant of mafia, journalists in search of scoops, politicians interested in crossing the state or in any case the « system ». Guilty according to them that they have « murdered » or in any case not protected Mattei ».

This will be the case, but in 1995 a magistrate of the Pavia Prosecutor’s Office, Vincenzo Calia, reopens the investigation and concludes that a small explosive charge was placed on the plane operated by the aircraft cart’s opening mechanism.
«Calia supports this hypothesis, but to argue it, it is forced to say that on 27 October in Catania there were two Eni’s jets, the one that fell with the I-Snap theme and its twin with the I-Snai abbreviation, found by me in France. Calia’s thesis is necessary to explain how it was possible to tamper the commands of the I-Snap trolley, given that just that morning she had flown twice without problems for the trolley for a first leg and return between Catania and Gela, then remaining for a few hours on a square over surveyed by military and by the same commander Bertuzzi. Too little time and too complicated, in short, to tamper with the controls of the trolley since to access you there are many hours and you have to disassemble the muzzle of the plane ».

But what does the plane found by her has to do with her?
« Arrival: Calia’s thesis indicates that the second plane was actually the second plane to fly from Catania to Gela to Gela that morning, brought to Sicily in Sicily in secretness by another pilot from Eni, the commander Bignardi, while the incidental one was, instead, always remained in a military hangar since the previous evening to be sabotaged ».

And why excludes this possibility?
« I am not the one who excludes it but four key documents: starting with the register of the Hangar of Ciampino airport in which the Eni planes were hospitalized, which does not report any movement of the second plane in those days, the flight register of the Catania airport in which there is no trace of I-Snai in Sicily, and, above all, two other documents that I myself acquired in 2023: i.e. the flight of the commander Bignardi and Airomobile booklet of this second plane. The document with Bignardi’s activities was recovered by the Public Prosecutor of Pavia, after an instance of the commander’s son. I procured the second document in France through the previous owners of the plane ».

And what do these two booklets say?
«They confirm that Bignardi was not with a Morane-Saulnier in Catania on the day of the accident and that the last time he had piloted this type of aircraft had been eight days before the accident. The Airomobile booklet adds that the last flight made by this aircraft had been 23 days before the accident, with Bignardi on board ».

So what do you think?
«Simple: this second plane was not in Catania on the day of the accident. On October 27 there was only the one who then fell, who had flown the accident in the morning and there was absolutely no material possibility and time to sabotage it before it started again for the fatal flight to Linate « .

Why did he devote all this time and energy to the Mattei affair?
«To restore once and for all the truth of the facts, because I am a passionate pilot and a scholar of the history of air accidents. It is not serious to tell that in Italy a conspiracy can be organized that involves hundreds of people: Eni, aeronautics, carabinieri, services, Rai, legal doctors, witnesses and so on. They are suggestive scenarios for a yellow novel, but certainly unreal to our country ».

No spy story, then.
«Complottism is a close relative of populism, which as far as I am concerned is absolute evil. Complottism and populism are nothing more than providing simple, captivating and wrong explanations and interpretations of complex facts ».

She knew Bignardi for family reasons.
« Yes, I met him. After 1962 he had left Eni and had become the pilot head of the Fiat aerial fleet. His stories confirmed that it was an accident, but was unable to explain it to Calia because in December 1980, after having accompanied my uncle Gianni in Kenya, he died in the Palestinian attack that in Nairobi made the Norfolk hotel explode ».