Former two-time Premier Giuliano Amato appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron to either refute or confirm his assertion about the cause of the crash on June 27, 1980, which killed all 81 persons aboard the Italian domestic flight.

Twas an honest mistake.

There’s a museum of the incident with a reconstruction of the plane crash in Italy. Absolutely worth a visit. https://www.inbologna.it/the-museum-for-memory-of-ustica-in-bologna.html

It was known for a long time that the plane was downed by a missile, with the French being suspects.