Hello everyone. It is almost five years since this accident but up until now no-one will have heard this account. I was one of the last two people to see this crew alive just before they crashed, my FO colleague being the other. I was the captain of EasyJet service 5233 from EGKK to LIRP and we were completing sector 3 out of 4, having already been to Cologne-Bonn and back with an initial 0710Z departure from London. My logbook shows that our aircraft was G-EZDI, an Airbus 319, and that we left London for the second time at 1100Z, arriving on the apron at Pisa at 1310Z. There is a mention of an Easyjet circling (during the event) in some of the news reports, but this is not quite correct. What actually happened is that we were required to conduct a circling approach, with a left-hand pattern to land on RW22L and then back-track on the same runway due to roadworks on 22R/04L which ordinarily would have served as the taxiway. As we completed the circle to land and the subsequent backtrack manoeuvre, the C130 crew were waiting for us to clear the active before their departure - so the circling was actually completed before the Hercules began its flight. I still remember clearly acknowledging the crew as we approached their holding position, passing from their right to left, but of the subsequent events we had no knowledge until after parking on the remote stand to disembark passengers. I was still completing the techlog when the FO (his first day out after line training) came back into the cockpit to say, "Hey, there's just been a crash of a light aircraft" which, initially, I have to confess went in one ear and out of the other. Then a minute or so later, he came back a second time to inform me that, no, it wasn't a light aircraft but the same Hercules that we had just waved to during our taxy in. At this point I unfastened my harness and put the techlog down to have a look for myself and went back to the steps at door 1L to have a look. Looking back now almost five years later I can still feel the initial sense of utter disbelief - a strange and ridiculous instinct - but it was with complete and utter disbelief that I witnessed what I did because it was just like looking at one of dozens of aircrash sequences I have seen on TV (e.g. United 232) - there was the pall of smoke, then the flash of another ignition, then another and yet more smoke, blacker and then, finally, the sound of sirens heading off to assist. I was there, but it was about 2000m away - it felt far away, but at the same time so close. I don't know when it occurred to me that we had just been waving to the guys involved, but obviously it wasn't until much later that I realised that we were actually the last people to see them alive. The airport closed immediately and our passengers and cabin crew disappeared on buses to some other rendezvous point. We expected to be there for the night but, amazingly the airport re-opened again after a couple of hours and I was faced with the choice of bringing back an empty aircraft or going to a hotel. After a brief chat, the two of us agreed to bring our 319 back home empty and so it was, 12 hours and 10 minutes after starting our day, we finally shutdown for the last time at base. Every so often this incident comes back into my thoughts and about two years ago, having seen nothing in the news, I was moved to write to the Italian authority for accident investigation with a request for information about the causes. They were kind enough to reply but all I learned was that the aircraft was lost during a "maximum performance" manouvre. The memory of this incident will live with me forever and my sympathy goes to everyone who knew the airmen involved.
