I became interested in this accident because I was deployed in the 6th Fleet at the time, and Navy ships and aircraft crews were ready to assist in any way requested. However, the location of the wreckage was quickly discovered - but hardly accessible - in rapid order.
The flight was flown in a recently manufactured MD-81, registration YU-ANA and owned by the Yugoslavian state government airline Inex-Adria Airways. The plane was loaded to capacity with 173 Slovenian tourists, including several children sharing seats. The crew consisted of 7 Adria employees.
This was a same day out and in trip to the French Island of Corsica, and the capital city of Ajaccio. The short flight departed what is now the Jože Pučnik Airport in Ljubljana, now the capital of the independent nation of Slovenia. Slovenia became independent, along with numerous other areas that were previously part of the Yugoslavian federation, before the fall of the Soviet block.
This was a relatively short flight, crossing the north Adriatic and central Italy before entering French airspace approaching the northeast of Corsica..
To make matters brief, the plane crashed into a mountain while descending in a holding pattern, in IFR conditions. If it were not so tragic, it would be a comedy of errors on the part of the crew, ATC and the entire airspace management system in Europe at that time.
I think most would find the events of this tragedy very insightful; see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inex-Adria_Aviopromet_Flight_1308#Investigation as well as a few other articles you may Google.
I painted this CLS MD-80 model to match the few pictures I found. Note the "DC-9" on the nacelles, though the plane was in fact an MD-81. It turns out that in the early days of the MD-80 series, it was marketed and certified as a DC-9 Series 80. Later many airlines painted MD-81/82/83, "Super 80" or airline names on the cowls, and MacD changed its marketing to emphasize the series 80 aspect of the design . YU-ANA clearly looked like a DC-9 at first glance because of the DC-9 script. The paint scheme is extremely close to the ALITALIA scheme in early jet days, though I have found no specific relationship between the two companies.
I also posted a copy of an annotated approach plate (plan view only) that gives some better clues as to where mistakes were made. Note the bottom limit of the holding pattern over the Ajaccio VOR - 6800 ft MSL. Also note no clear indication of altitude limits on the 247 deg radial outbound from Ajaccio to the final approach phase, though other information I found indicates it was likely 3300 ft minimum
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