The flight carried five passengers and three crew members. The crew consisted of pilot-in-command Ernesto Roggero, co-pilot Erminio Bonfanti, and trainee flight attendant Luigi Politta. Both pilots held a valid airline transport license and were qualified to operate the DC-3. Roggero had a total of 10,731 flight hours (2,296 on the DC-3) and Bonfanti had 832 hours, all on the DC-3. The passengers were Giuseppe Mancini, Marco di Michele, Marvin Gelber, Sergeant Angelo Lombruno, and Count Nicolò Marcello. Flight 703 took off from Pescara at 17:36 GMT on an
instrument flight rules plan and climbed to its cruising altitude of . The pilot requested radar guidance from a Pescara defense radar, which was not normally available for civil aircraft. The first part of the flight was intentionally carried out south of the direct route to avoid heavy cloud formations. The radar lost the aircraft at 18:12. At 18:18 the pilot requested a clearance to the Rome
non-directional beacon (NDB). The flight was later cleared to proceed to the NDB and descend to . At 18:28 the pilot requested to descend further. He was instructed to contact Ciampino tower but failed to do so. The aircraft was unable to tune on the NDB and had to avoid the clouds as the radio compass was not working properly. Around 18:32 the pilot reported he could see the ground but visual contact was later lost. At 18:35 he was cleared to proceed to the Ostia
VHF omnidirectional range (VOR), however he reported that his VOR was not giving reliable information. The DC-3 struck Mount Serra Alta, northwest of
Sora, Lazio at around 18:37, destroying the aircraft and killing all eight occupants on board. == Cause ==