[gatagato]

The Superga air disaster took place on Wednesday 4 May 1949 when a plane carrying the entire Torino A.C. football team (popularly known as Il Grande Torino) crashed into Superga Hill near Turin, killing all 31 people aboard. 18 players, club officials, journalists accompanying the team and the plane's crew were lost. The team was returning from a farewell match for Xico Ferreira against Benfica in Lisbon.

Accident description from Aviation Safety Network’s

• Date: Wednesday 4 May 1949
• Time: ca 17:05
• Type: Fiat G.212CP
• Operator: Avio Linee Italiane - ALI
• Registration: I-ELCE
• C/n / msn: 05
• First flight: 1947
• Crew: Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4
• Passengers: Fatalities: 27 / Occupants: 27
• Total: Fatalities: 31 / Occupants: 31
• Airplane damage: Written off
• Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair)
• Location: 12 km (7.5 mls) E of Torino-Aeritalia Airport (Italy)
• Phase: Approach (APR)
• Nature: Int'l Non Scheduled Passenger
• Departure airport: Barcelona Airport (BCN/LEBL), Spain
• Destination airport: Torino-Aeritalia Airport (LIMA), Italy

Narrative:
The plane was taking home the Turin soccer team after a match in Lisbon. The Fiat plane took off at 09:52 and made a refueling stop at Barcelona at 13:15. Weather in the Turin area was bad; visibility at the airport was 1200m with a cloud base at 400m. In the area of the 675m high Superga Hill, visibility was just 40m. The crew reported over Savona at 2000m. They were then forced to descend to be able to fly visually. While descending for Turin the aircraft crashed into a church on top of Superga Hill.
Eighteen players, 3 executives, 2 trainers, 3 journalists and an interpreter died in the crash. The causes were bad weather with low clouds, poor radio aids and an error in navigation.

Il Grande Torino was by far the then strongest football team in Italy (it had won 4 National Championships in a row, from 1945 to 1949) and one of the strongest teams in the world.
Of the entire squad only three players remained: Sauro Tomà, who missed the trip to Portugal due to injury; László Kubala, who missed the fatal trip to stay with his family; Luigi Giuliano, who didn't obtain the passport.

Players

• Valerio Bacigalupo
• Aldo Ballarin
• Dino Ballarin
• Milo Bongiorni
• Eusebio Castigliano
• Rubens Fadini
• Guglielmo Gabetto
• Ruggero Grava
• Giuseppe Grezar
• Ezio Loik
• Virgilio Maroso
• Danilo Martelli
• Valentino Mazzola
• Romeo Menti
• Piero Operto
• Franco Ossola
• Mario Rigamonti
• Julius Schubert

Club officials

• Arnaldo Agnisetta, manager
• Ippolito Civalleri, manager
• Egri Erbstein, trainer
• Leslie Lievesley, coach
• Ottavio Corina, masseur

Journalists

• Renato Casalbore, (founder of Tuttosport)
• Luigi Cavallero, (La Stampa)
• Renato Tosatti, (Gazzetta del Popolo)

Crew

• Pierluigi Meroni, captain
• Antonio Pangrazi
• Celestino D'Inca
• Cesare Biancardi

Others

• Andrea Bonaiuti, organiser

Renato Casalbore's typewriter



About 800,000 people attended the funerals






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superga_air_disaster
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19490504-1
http://h2g2.com/approved_entry/A17090697
http://www.ilgrandetorino.net/strage.htm

[Feirefiz]

It's not commonplace that an airplane crashes of all things to a wall...

Thank you for posting I've never heard of this incident before.

[Faline]

Great images and info, thanks for posting

[Konglomo]

Just imagine walking up on that, finding a head lying around, kicking it into the fuselage, and screaming "GOAL!!!!!!!!"

[nofuckinway]

i was surprised to see so many bodies relatively intact after a crash like that. great post though

[san_chayin]

[gosportjamie]

Originally Posted by nofuckinway ↗

i was surprised to see so many bodies relatively intact after a crash like that. great post though

It was a propeller-driven aircraft so not capable of as high a speed as a jet aircraft, and the crew were flying low in conditions of poor visibility so they would, most likely, have been flying well below the maximum performance of the aircraft at that altitude so it was a much less severe impact with much less severe injuries to the occupants than is commonly seen with jet aircraft. It has been strongly suggested that the crew were flying at such a low airspeed that when they saw the church and pulled up the aircraft stalled and pretty much belly-flopped out of the sky...

[wincheck777]

"It's a bird.... it's a plane.... It's Jesus Christ descending from heaven!!! no wait just a plane."

[lildjkitty]

Thank you for the post, never heard of this